The latest numbers from the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change 2025 report tells us what we have known for some time now – the climate crisis is our nation’s single largest existential threat.
That we have an exponentially-escalating public health and economic crisis driven by climate change is not a surprise, yet the numbers are truly shocking; in 2024 alone, Bangladesh lost $24 billion — equivalent to 5% of its GDP — due to heat-related productivity losses, averaging 28.8 heatwave days of which 13.2 would not have occurred without the adverse effects of the climate crisis.
While this climate crisis is unquestionably the fault of the developed world, and it is their responsibility and moral duty to assist nations such as ours, what cannot be denied is that we are still not doing all we can do to counter the effects.
Nowhere is this more apparent than knowing that Bangladesh spent $8.2 billion on fossil fuel subsidies in 2023, far exceeding investments in clean energy or mitigation. While we recognize that we cannot eliminate the use of fossil fuels overnight, and that they will continue to be of paramount importance to powering our nation, what we can expect is more balance and more initiative to steer the nations towards more renewable sources of energy.
All experts have one unified message that climate change is in fact a present public health emergency for Bangladesh. It is time our nation recognizes the magnitude of the crisis, and does everything it can to ensure that decades of development and progress is not eliminated as a result of it. To that end, both decisive national action by present and future administrations as well as enhanced international support will be crucial to ensuring our future prosperity.
