Every few days, Bazlur Rashid Shawon spends hours waiting in line with his motorcycle to buy petrol. Six litres used to last him two weeks, but with many fuel stations limiting sales to two litres per customer, he has to queue up more often.
“The long hours waiting under the sun drain my energy and take away precious time from my busy days,” the 32-year-old pharmaceutical company employee told Climate Home News as he waited in a traffic jam on the way to work in the capital, Dhaka.
Bangladesh relies heavily on imports to meet its fuel needs and it has been badly affected by disruption in global energy markets since the start of the Iran war. Striving to stem demand for petrol and diesel, the government has ordered reduced working hours at offices and malls, while many fuel stations have been shut due to shortages.
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The crisis could, however, give momentum to Bangladesh’s nascent efforts to ramp up electric transportation in the country of 175 million people, following in the footsteps of South Asian EV leaders such as Nepal.
Among the government’s energy-saving measures, it said it would scrap duties on imported electric buses for schools.
New NDC maps rising EV ambitions
In its latest national climate plan, Bangladesh says it wants electric cars to account for 30% of the market by 2035. By the same year, a quarter of the buses circulating on the capital’s roads should be electric, according to the country’s updated nationally determined contribution (NDC).
While the country has a long way to go on EV adoption, there are signs that the global oil shock triggered by the Middle East conflict has stirred interest among consumers.
Nepal’s EV revolution pays off as oil crisis causes pain at the pumps
In the capital, Dhaka, dealers of electric cars, scooters and three-wheelers told Climate Home News they had seen a rise in sales and customer enquiries over the last month.
Mohammad Salauddin, who has been in the Dhaka e-bike business for 10 years, said demand was weak when he started: only one or two bikes a month from his showroom in the city’s Hazaribagh area. With the fuel crunch, sales have risen to about 20 bikes a month.
He has now expanded his business, setting up another showroom elsewhere in the city, and said demand is outpacing supply.
“The demand will only rise in the coming days as people see the benefits of electric transport,” he said.
South Asia’s EV laggard
But despite the optimism of EV retailers, Bangladesh’s electric transport ambitions face numerous challenges – from scant charging infrastructure and policy incentives to high purchase costs and hesitance among consumers.
Bangladesh is a laggard on EV adoption in South Asia. EVs account for less than 1% of new vehicle sales, much lower than in neighbouring India, where statistics put EV penetration at about 8%. In Nepal, electric vehicles now make up about three-quarters of new car sales.
Registered e-bikes are few and far between and electric cars remain a niche segment. Millions of electric three-wheelers operate on the roads, but most of them are unregistered.
Last year, the government slashed import duties on components for e-bikes manufacturing and drafted a national electric vehicle policy spelling out incentives for manufacturing and importing EVs. But the policy is still waiting to be approved.
Growth barriers
Even if government policies are fully implemented, EV adoption faces other hurdles in Bangladesh.
Fuwad Hossain Saddam, who works at Keraniganj on the outskirts of Dhaka, has an e-bike and says it is the best option for short trips, but not for longer journeys.
“For commuting to the office, taking children to parks, or going to the market for shopping – e-bike,” he said. “For long distances, petrol-powered transport is the way to go.”
“Petrol is unlimited, e-bike is limited,” he said, adding that his older model stretches to only about 50 kilometres (30 miles) on a full charge, with charging taking six to seven hours.
Lack of charging infrastructure is one of the biggest barriers to EV adoption in Bangladesh, which has only 112 formal EV charging stations, though the count varies depending on how charging points are defined, said Nayeem Hossain, head of EV sales at Trade Intercontinental.
Most EVs in the country use lead-acid batteries, as opposed to faster-charging and longer-lasting lithium-ion batteries, he said, suggesting that battery-swapping facilities at fuel stations would be a quick way to encourage EV usage and adoption.
“This could enable people to rapidly increase the range and mileage of their EVs,” he said.
Offering a subsidised charging rate for EVs could also spur take-up and tackle use of unauthorised electricity connections – commonly used by the country’s legions of unregistered electric three-wheelers.
High initial purchase costs also make EVs a distant dream for many would-be buyers in Bangladesh, where the average monthly wage is 18,000 taka (about $146).
Raja Chowdhury, 35, a businessman, has used an electric scooter for seven years. He said he was happy with his purchase, but added that it was not something everyone can afford.
“If the budget allows, choose lithium; if not, start with acid batteries and save to upgrade later,” he said.
Until upfront costs come down and charging becomes easier, many riders like Shawon will delay making the switch to electric.
“For the time being, waiting in line for fuel seems to be the only option for me,” Shawon said.
The post Charging worries, high prices put brakes on EV growth in Bangladesh appeared first on Climate Home News.
Charging worries, high prices put brakes on EV growth in Bangladesh
SYDNEY, Thursday 30 October 2026 — In response to reports that the Albanese government is set to introduce draft legislation this year that would seek to ban data centres in Australia’s suburbs, Joe Rafalowicz, Head of Climate and Energy at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said:
“These reports are a testament to the growing community opposition to these completely inappropriate AI factories that have sprung up across our suburbs, and Big Tech corporations should take heed — the data centre build-out must not happen without the endorsement of the Australian people.
“But the government can’t simply ship this problem out to regional Australia without addressing the fundamental issues with this extractive new industry.
“We’re already seeing a trend of AI data centre proposals moving to the regions, in areas that are more water-scarce, more environmentally sensitive, and next to sources of fracked and coal seam gas to support their massive BYO gas-fired power plans — a pattern we’ve seen play out in the United States.
“From the Beetaloo Basin in the NT to the Western Downs in Qld, we’re seeing a wave of AI data centre proposals that would see new gas fast-tracked to support their massive energy demand, and threaten to completely derail Australia’s energy transition.
“Just as suburban Australians are asking, “what for?”, regional communities like Berry Springs and Dalby do not want dirty data centres setting up shop with absolutely no benefit to their communities. Greenpeace is calling for a moratorium on AI data centre developments until strict and enforceable safeguards are in place to protect our climate and our communities.”
-ENDS-
Media contact
Kate O’Callaghan on +61 406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
AI data centre ban in suburbs would not address fundamental issues: Greenpeace
In the thick of the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan in 2024, the UN climate talks were rattled by what can only be described as a major PR disaster. The BBC, Reuters and The Guardian all carried headlines, attributed to leading climate policy experts, that the COPs were “no longer fit for purpose”.
The articles outlined a series of reforms called for in an open letter signed by 22 eminent scientists and politicians, including a former UN secretary-general and previous UN climate chief, with a further 150 lending their support. The headlines shook confidence in the COP process, just as governments were wrestling over a new climate finance goal.
The Club of Rome – which handled the media relations for the letter – hurried to say that its “constructive, supportive ideas” had been “misinterpreted”. Negotiators kept calm(ish) and carried on, in the end landing the finance goal after some high-stakes drama on the final day.
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To my surprise, when I went back this week to read the letter again, I could not find the offending line about the COPs not being fit for purpose. The Club of Rome has yet to respond to my query about its disappearance.
Whatever happened to the wording, that sentiment has been widely shared. COPs have ballooned in size while the importance of their outcomes seems to have diminished since the 2015 Paris Agreement (with the exception of the 2023 COP in Dubai where countries agreed to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems).
The same on the surface
Two years on from those painful headlines in Baku, has anything changed for the better? You might be forgiven for thinking not. Official decisions are still made by consensus rather than the majority voting some have called for to stop blockers.
Tens of thousands of officials, activists and business execs still scurry around the halls to an ever-growing list of side events, roundtables and dialogues, while deals still come down to rows, all-nighters and jargon-filled texts adopted to rounds of applause.
But it would not be true to say that COPs have completely failed to respond to the very real need to translate the words of the Paris Agreement into action in the outside world.
Global warming is projected to be around 1.3C lower this century than it would have been if the world had not committed to tackle the climate crisis under that accord. Developing countries have a valued space at COPs in which their voices have equal weight in decision-making, unlike in many other international fora. And most importantly, perhaps, there has been a subtle shift, tipping the balance away from negotiating towards doing.
Brazil branded last year’s summit in Belém as the “COP of Implementation”, corralling the sprawling Action Agenda into six axes. This was a bid to impose some structure on the mushrooming efforts between governments, UN agencies, cities, businesses and civil society to set targets and spur faster results on their pet issues, from methane emissions to health and adaptation in conflict zones. COP30 alone saw the launch of 120 “plans to accelerate solutions”.
COP30 roadmaps off the cuff
Meanwhile, as the formal negotiations drew to a close, it was clear that consensus decision-making was evolving into something a little more improvised.
With only around half of all countries on board with the idea of a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels, COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago announced his team would put one together over the coming year, along with another on how to meet a global goal to halt deforestation by 2030. Those roadmaps will be launched next week, presented and discussed at COP31, though it’s still unclear whether or how they’ll be incorporated into the formal negotiating agenda.
Some leading policy-makers don’t think that matters too much. Speaking to journalists before the Antalya summit, COP30 CEO Ana Toni and Dutch climate minister Stientje van Veldhoven said “coalitions of the willing” can move ahead without needing consensus from the COPs. This, they said, was evident this year at the first global conference on TAFF, co-chaired by van Veldhoven and attended by 60 countries.
“Consensus or no-consensus in the general COP doesn’t make a difference for the choices I have to make in my country to get my country to phase out fossil fuels,” said the Dutch minister. The Netherlands recently became one of the first to publish a national TAFF plan.
COP31 banks on flagship voluntary initiatives
This thinking has permeated the management and expected outcomes of this year’s COP too. Earlier this year, Türkiye, supported by international energy agencies, floated the idea of a voluntary goal to boost electrification to 35% of the world’s final energy consumption by 2035 – and this is now being touted as one of the main results to be expected from Antalya.
Türkiye is also championing a pledge on AI and climate, while co-host Australia is pushing to ease access to climate finance for least developed countries and small island states.
COP31 presidency announces AI pledge as UN climate chief says Big Tech ‘on thin ice’
None of these needs consensus. But with a political cover decision already in the works, as trailed by the COP presidents, they – and perhaps the fossil fuel roadmap – may find a home in the official text if language acceptable to most can be found, giving them them additional weight.
UNFCCC reform process in the shadows
Formal reform is underway too, if quietly. UN climate chief Simon Stiell is leading a review informed by ongoing consultations with a group of 15 well-respected climate policy experts, three of whom signed the open letter in 2024.
Among them is leading Swedish climate and sustainability scientist Johan Rockström who has strong ideas about how to make COPs function better, including a switch to majority voting. He told the same press briefing nothing stands in the way of this, because the rules of procedure for making decisions at COPs have never been formally agreed.
Still, to get away from the default setting of consensus would require agreement on a new system that may be impossible to achieve given the rise in bullying tactics by fossil fuel heavyweights.
Comment: The UN climate process was built for negotiation – now it must support implementation
The deliberations with the high-level policy gurus, as reflected in a summary of June’s session in Bonn, largely echo what’s already happening organically, calling for stronger partnerships and accountability both in and between the Action Agenda and negotiations. It doesn’t mention voting.
A general overview of the reform exercise says that “improving and optimizing the [UN climate] process over the medium to long term… will be critical to fostering trust, enhancing collaboration, and catalyzing increased ambition”.
In the short term, don’t hold your breath for anything concrete on reform at COP31 but watch for signs in what ends up dominating the headlines from Türkiye.
The post Editor’s Desk: COP reform is happening quietly, behind the headlines appeared first on Climate Home News.
Editor’s Desk: COP reform is happening quietly, behind the headlines