Bangladesh

Last update: 1 August 2021

Economy wide

With sufficient international support Bangladesh will be able to implement its 1.5°C domestic emissions pathway requiring emissions levels of 74-112 MtCO₂e/yr or 13-42% below 2012 levels by 2030 excluding LULUCF.

Bangladesh's total GHG emissions excl. LULUCF MtCO₂e/yr

Displayed values

Percent
MtCO₂e/yr

Reference Year

2010
2012
2015

*Net zero emissions excl LULUCF is achieved through deployment of BECCS; other novel CDR is not included in these pathways

Graph description

The figure shows national 1.5°C compatible emissions pathways. This is presented through a set of illustrative pathways and a 1.5°C compatible range for total GHG emissions excl. LULUCF. The 1.5°C compatible range is based on global cost-effective pathways assessed by the IPCC SR1.5, defined by the 5th-50th percentiles of the distributions of such pathways which achieve the LTTG of the Paris Agreement. We consider one primary net-negative emission technology in our analysis (BECCS) due to data availability. Net negative emissions from the land-sector (LULUCF) and novel CDR technologies are not included in this analysis due to data limitations from the assessed models. Furthermore, in the global cost-effective model pathways we analyse, such negative emissions sources are usually underestimated in developed country regions, with current-generation models relying on land sinks in developing countries.

Methodology
- Underlying global pathways
- Downscaling of global pathways
Data References
- Historical emissions: PRIMAP-Hist 2021. Last inventory year: 2019.
- Data discrepancies

2030 NDC

In its updated 2021 NDC, Bangladesh has put forward a stronger pledge of an unconditional emissions reduction of 6.73% below business as usual (BAU) level and a conditional target of 15.12% below BAU, both now covering all sectors of the economy as opposed to the previous NDC.

However, both pledges will lead to an increase of emissions of 197% and 149% above 2012 levels respectively by 2030 when excluding LULUCF.

Long-term strategy

As of April 2022, Bangladesh has not submitted a long-term decarbonisation strategy to the UNFCCC.

2050 Ambition

Long-term 1.5°C compatible pathways show that Bangladesh could achieve GHG emissions reductions of about 59-73% below 2012 by 2050, or 34-53 MtCO₂e/yr excluding LULUCF.¹

Remaining emissions

Remaining emissions, mostly coming from agriculture and waste could then be balanced through the deployment of carbon dioxide removal approaches such as from the land sector.²

Negative emissions

The country will need to implement stringent policies to reduce its LULUCF emissions which were a source of emissions in 2012 to further contribute to negative emissions.³^,⁴

Sectors

Power

In 2021, Bangladesh scrapped 90% of its planned coal expansion because of the rising costs of coal imports and increased price per generation unit, including cancelling plans to build ten coal-fired power plants.⁵^,⁶ However, Bangladesh is substituting its previous expansion coal plans with gas instead of renewable energy.
1.5°C compatible pathways show that the power sector would need to fully decarbonise by around 2040. This would be driven by a phase out of natural gas by 2040 and an increased share of renewable energy – from 1% in 2019 to 19-26% by 2030 and 77-98% by 2040. This stands in contrast with the country’s plans to increase renewables based power generation to only 40% by 2041.⁷

Buildings

The building sector in Bangladesh consumes 55% of total energy, with the residential sector accounting for 40% of electricity consumption. 1.5°C compatible pathways show high electrification of the building sector reaching 90-100% of total energy mix by 2050.
Biomass is an important energy source in buildings, particularly for cooking, where 50% of energy demand was met with biomass in 2019. All scenarios see a rapid decline in biomass demand dropping to 3-22% by 2050.

Industry

The industrial sector in Bangladesh consumes 33% of the total final energy consumption, with the sector accounting for 44% of electricity consumption in 2019. 1.5°C compatible pathways show that the share of electricity consumption increases to 76-80% by 2050 and direct CO₂ decline rapidly reaching levels of 2-6 MtCO₂/yr by 2050.

Transport

While the transport sector of Bangladesh is at present completely reliant on fossil fuels, mostly oil and gas, 1.5°C compatible pathways show a the share of electricity in the transport sector increasing to 21-24% by 2050.

While global cost-effective pathways assessed by the IPCC Special Report 1.5°C provide useful guidance for an upper-limit of emissions trajectories for countries, they underestimate the feasible space for developed countries to reach net zero earlier. The current generation of models tend to depend strongly on land-use sinks outside of currently developed countries and include fossil fuel use well beyond the time at which these could be phased out, compared to what is understood from bottom-up approaches. The scientific teams which provide these global pathways constantly improve the technologies represented in their models - and novel CDR technologies are now being included in new studies focused on deep mitigation scenarios meeting the Paris Agreement. A wide assessment database of these new scenarios is not yet available; thus, we rely on available scenarios which focus particularly on BECCS as a net-negative emission technology. Accordingly, we do not yet consider land-sector emissions (LULUCF) and other CDR approaches. ↩
Global cost-effective pathways assessed by the IPCC Special Report 1.5°C tend to include fossil fuel use well beyond the time at which these could be phased out, compared to what is understood from bottom-up approaches, and often rely on rather conservative assumptions in the development of renewable energy technologies. This tends to result in greater reliance on technological CDR than if a faster transition to renewables were achieved. The scenarios available at the time of this analysis focus particularly on BECCS as a net-negative emission technology, and our downscaling methods do not yet take national BECCS potentials into account. ↩
Ministry of Environment and Forests. Second national Communication of Bangladesh to UNFCCC. (2012). ↩
FAOSTAT. Land use Total Data Bangladesh. (2021). ↩
Gerretsen, I. Bangladesh scraps nine coal power plants as overseas finance dries up. Climate Home News (2021). ↩
Reuters. Bangladesh looks to cut future coal use as costs rise, Energy News, ET EnergyWorld. Energyworld.com (2020). ↩
Dhaka Tribune. State Minister: 40% of Bangladesh’s power will come from renewables by 2041. Dhaka Tribune. (2021). ↩

What is Bangladesh's pathway to limit global warming to 1.5°C?