Staff Correspondent

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has suggested Bangladesh to think of ways for accelerating adoption of renewable energy across the country as intensive heat in the country will further increase the demand.

"One of the challenges that Bangladesh will face is the increase of demand for energy," ADB's climate envoy Warren Evans said adding noting that Bangladesh is already taking really good steps for awareness building on the risks of intensive heat for people, specially the women.

He said investment is required in the coming years to be able to survive and grow economically in the face of climate impact. "It is going to require a substantial investment."

Warren provides broad oversight and guidance for ADB’s climate operations, including optimizing climate finance scale and impact, mobilizing new and additional technical and financial resources, strengthening ADB’s external climate partnerships and engagement with international climate agreements and initiatives, and reinforcing capacity development for climate change operations.

Responding to a question, he said it will require a lot of policy and regulatory reforms.

The envoy referred to a policy based loan (PBL) with Bangladesh that looks at those policy and regulatory reforms.

He said that was set in place, giving a new direction for ADB"s system in Bangladesh, which is largely focused on climate action.

"So, there are a lot of challenges, but we see great real progress," said the climate envoy.

He mentioned the "Gender and Heat Initiative" launched recently to better understand and invest in adaptation to the impacts of heat stress on women and girls across Asia and the Pacific.

Under the new technical assistance program, ADB sees how the growing threat of heat stress affects women and identify specific policies, actions, and investments that can help governments reduce the impacts of heat on women and girls.

The initiative marks ADB’s commitment to integrating heat action-planning into all new operations in vulnerable regions, focusing on enhancing women’s climate resilience and advocating for gender-responsive measures.

The programme covered Bangladesh, Cambodia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Tajikistan.

Extreme heat has been linked to more than 650 billion hours of annual labour losses worldwide, equivalent to about 148 million full-time jobs—a scale of disruption comparable to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Women are disproportionately affected by these rising temperatures, facing life-threatening conditions and substantial socioeconomic losses.

The programme aligns with the bank’s ambition to provide $100 billion in climate financing from its own resources from 2019 to 2030, including $34 billion for adaptation.

In 2022, ADB committed $7.1 billion of climate finance, including $4.3 billion for mitigation and $2.8 billion for adaptation. The bank mobilized an additional $548 million in climate finance from the private sector last year.

Warren said Bangladesh is highly vulnerable to every climate impact - storms, floods, and droughts. "Bangladesh is highly exposed to all these."

He, however, said Bangladesh has taken very serious actions already in terms of disaster management, ensuring less impact when any disaster comes.

The climate exert, a special senior advisor (Climate Change) at the office of the President at the Asian Development Bank, said Bangladesh and India are well advanced in terms managing disasters and rest of the world will learn from these two South Asian countries.

To mitigate intensive heat-related problems, he said some fairly simple measures can be taken.

It will require more sheds and early morning system so that employers can make their workers aware of the heat.

In rural areas, he said, it is all about water and making it available to everyone. "There are many things that can be done."