{"id":28332,"date":"2016-01-19T12:05:26","date_gmt":"2016-01-19T12:05:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/?p=28332"},"modified":"2016-01-19T12:05:26","modified_gmt":"2016-01-19T12:05:26","slug":"bangladesh-bank-governor-launches-200m-green-fund","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2016\/01\/19\/bangladesh-bank-governor-launches-200m-green-fund\/","title":{"rendered":"Bangladesh Bank launches $200m ‘green transformation fund’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following successful solar homes microfinance push, governor Atiur Rahman seeks to clean up textiles manufacturing<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Green

Green finance initiative will target Bangladesh’s export-focused clothing industry (Flickr\/jankie)<\/p><\/div>\n

By Megan Darby<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The central bank of Bangladesh is launching a US$200 million fund to green the country\u2019s clothing factories.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Governor Atiur Rahman trailed the initiative at a sustainable development conference in Dhaka last week.<\/p>\n

The goal was \u201ctransforming Bangladesh into a fully fledged \u2018green\u2019 nation,\u201d he told delegates<\/a>, to stay competitive amid slowing global trade.<\/p>\n

Following financial incentives to light Bangladeshi homes with solar power, it represents a scaling up of the bank\u2019s green ambitions.<\/p>\n

While it is not yet clear how, the fund is to shrink the carbon footprint of Bangladesh\u2019s textile industry \u2013 the second largest in the world \u2013 and leather production.<\/p>\n

A development economist by background, Rahman has used his role at Bangladesh Bank since 2009 to promote sustainable growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has been pushing green banking down the throats of the commercial banking sector in Bangladesh,\u201d said climate expert Saleemul Huq. \u201cIt has been a mixed success \u2013 not everybody has taken it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he says the results are visible in a rapid roll-out of solar panels to rural homes, made possible by financial innovation.<\/p>\n

Podcast:<\/strong> Bangladeshi expert talks rich-poor tensions and 1.5C<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In 2010, the bank started offering cut-rate loans to financial institutions lending to green projects. That trickled down to make solar systems affordable to poor households.<\/p>\n

The International Institute for Environment and Development, where Huq is a senior fellow, evaluated the impact in a report<\/a> published last August.<\/p>\n

Combined with improvements in after-sale service, researchers found the low cost finance had accelerated take-up of solar home systems, with 3 million installed by 2014.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople have been buying them like crazy,\u201d said Huq. For lower weekly instalments than the cost of kerosene, families could get electric light and perhaps a radio or TV.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe demand for lighting comes from children telling their parents they need lighting to do their homework at night. That is really the driving force.\u201d<\/p>\n

Report:<\/strong>\u00a0Bangladesh coal power plans stall<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Around a third of the country\u2019s 170 million population lacks electric power. As the government struggles to push through<\/a> coal power plants, solar is key to a goal of universal access by 2021.<\/p>\n

Rahman signalled Bangladesh Bank is preparing to expand the low carbon push to other sectors. \u201cThese are only small initial steps,\u201d he said, \u201cwith lots more to do in our intended countrywide transition to environmentally sustainable output practices and lifestyles.\u201d<\/p>\n

It may issue a green bond to raise money for such projects, he added \u2013 a suggestion welcomed by the Climate Bonds Initiative.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe look forward to Dr. Atiur and his pioneering central bank to show us its next steps in the transition,\u201d wrote the think tank\u2019s CEO Sean Kidney in a blog<\/a>. \u201cBravo, Bangladesh!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEWS: Following successful solar homes microfinance push, governor Atiur Rahman seeks to clean up textiles manufacturing","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":28334,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1847,208,3650],"tags":[281],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-28332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia","category-climate-finance","category-green-bonds","tag-bangladesh","type-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBangladesh Bank launches $200m 'green transformation fund'<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"NEWS: Following successful solar homes microfinance push, governor Atiur Rahman seeks to clean up textiles manufacturing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2016\/01\/19\/bangladesh-bank-governor-launches-200m-green-fund\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bangladesh Bank launches $200m 'green transformation fund'\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"NEWS: Following successful solar homes microfinance push, governor Atiur Rahman seeks to clean up textiles manufacturing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2016\/01\/19\/bangladesh-bank-governor-launches-200m-green-fund\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Climate Home News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ClimateHomeNews\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-01-19T12:05:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/cdn.climatechangenews.com\/files\/2016\/01\/bangladesh-textile-factory.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"448\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Megan Darby\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@climatemegan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ClimateHome\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Megan Darby\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2016\/01\/19\/bangladesh-bank-governor-launches-200m-green-fund\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2016\/01\/19\/bangladesh-bank-governor-launches-200m-green-fund\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Megan Darby\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/#\/schema\/person\/8d5e91de65d6588da32864acbca918c6\"},\"headline\":\"Bangladesh Bank launches $200m ‘green transformation fund’\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-01-19T12:05:26+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-01-19T12:05:26+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2016\/01\/19\/bangladesh-bank-governor-launches-200m-green-fund\/\"},\"wordCount\":486,\"commentCount\":1,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2016\/01\/19\/bangladesh-bank-governor-launches-200m-green-fund\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/cdn.climatechangenews.com\/files\/2016\/01\/bangladesh-textile-factory.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Bangladesh\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Asia\",\"Climate finance\",\"Green bonds\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2016\/01\/19\/bangladesh-bank-governor-launches-200m-green-fund\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2016\/01\/19\/bangladesh-bank-governor-launches-200m-green-fund\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2016\/01\/19\/bangladesh-bank-governor-launches-200m-green-fund\/\",\"name\":\"Bangladesh Bank launches $200m 'green transformation fund'\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2016\/01\/19\/bangladesh-bank-governor-launches-200m-green-fund\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2016\/01\/19\/bangladesh-bank-governor-launches-200m-green-fund\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/cdn.climatechangenews.com\/files\/2016\/01\/bangladesh-textile-factory.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-01-19T12:05:26+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-01-19T12:05:26+00:00\",\"description\":\"NEWS: Following successful solar homes microfinance push, governor Atiur Rahman seeks to clean up textiles manufacturing\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2016\/01\/19\/bangladesh-bank-governor-launches-200m-green-fund\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2016\/01\/19\/bangladesh-bank-governor-launches-200m-green-fund\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2016\/01\/19\/bangladesh-bank-governor-launches-200m-green-fund\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cdn.climatechangenews.com\/files\/2016\/01\/bangladesh-textile-factory.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/cdn.climatechangenews.com\/files\/2016\/01\/bangladesh-textile-factory.jpg\",\"width\":800,\"height\":448,\"caption\":\"Green finance initiative will target Bangladesh's export-focused clothing industry (Flickr\/jankie)\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2016\/01\/19\/bangladesh-bank-governor-launches-200m-green-fund\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Bangladesh Bank launches $200m ‘green transformation fund’\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/\",\"name\":\"Climate Home News\",\"description\":\"Climate change news, analysis, commentary, video and podcasts focused on developments in global climate politics\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Climate Home News\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cdn.climatechangenews.com\/files\/2024\/01\/03155729\/Climate-Home-News-Logo-RGB-Colour.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/cdn.climatechangenews.com\/files\/2024\/01\/03155729\/Climate-Home-News-Logo-RGB-Colour.png\",\"width\":2856,\"height\":862,\"caption\":\"Climate Home News\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ClimateHomeNews\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/ClimateHome\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/climate-home-news\",\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/climatestudio\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/#\/schema\/person\/8d5e91de65d6588da32864acbca918c6\",\"name\":\"Megan Darby\",\"description\":\"Megan Darby is the editor of Climate Home News. She previously wrote about UK energy and water industries for leading sector publication Utility Week. She holds a Mathematics degree from Newcastle University.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/author\/megan-darby\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/climatemegan\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/author\/megan-darby\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Bangladesh Bank launches $200m 'green transformation fund'","description":"NEWS: Following successful solar homes microfinance push, governor Atiur Rahman seeks to clean up textiles manufacturing","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2016\/01\/19\/bangladesh-bank-governor-launches-200m-green-fund\/","og_locale":"en_GB","og_type":"article","og_title":"Bangladesh Bank launches $200m 'green transformation fund'","og_description":"NEWS: Following successful solar homes microfinance push, governor Atiur Rahman seeks to clean up textiles manufacturing","og_url":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2016\/01\/19\/bangladesh-bank-governor-launches-200m-green-fund\/","og_site_name":"Climate Home News","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ClimateHomeNews\/","article_published_time":"2016-01-19T12:05:26+00:00","og_image":[{"width":800,"height":448,"url":"https:\/\/cdn.climatechangenews.com\/files\/2016\/01\/bangladesh-textile-factory.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Megan Darby","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@climatemegan","twitter_site":"@ClimateHome","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Megan Darby","Estimated reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2016\/01\/19\/bangladesh-bank-governor-launches-200m-green-fund\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2016\/01\/19\/bangladesh-bank-governor-launches-200m-green-fund\/"},"author":{"name":"Megan Darby","@id":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/#\/schema\/person\/8d5e91de65d6588da32864acbca918c6"},"headline":"Bangladesh Bank launches $200m ‘green transformation fund’","datePublished":"2016-01-19T12:05:26+00:00","dateModified":"2016-01-19T12:05:26+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2016\/01\/19\/bangladesh-bank-governor-launches-200m-green-fund\/"},"wordCount":486,"commentCount":1,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2016\/01\/19\/bangladesh-bank-governor-launches-200m-green-fund\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/cdn.climatechangenews.com\/files\/2016\/01\/bangladesh-textile-factory.jpg","keywords":["Bangladesh"],"articleSection":["Asia","Climate finance","Green bonds"],"inLanguage":"en-GB","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2016\/01\/19\/bangladesh-bank-governor-launches-200m-green-fund\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2016\/01\/19\/bangladesh-bank-governor-launches-200m-green-fund\/","url":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2016\/01\/19\/bangladesh-bank-governor-launches-200m-green-fund\/","name":"Bangladesh Bank launches $200m 'green transformation fund'","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2016\/01\/19\/bangladesh-bank-governor-launches-200m-green-fund\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2016\/01\/19\/bangladesh-bank-governor-launches-200m-green-fund\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/cdn.climatechangenews.com\/files\/2016\/01\/bangladesh-textile-factory.jpg","datePublished":"2016-01-19T12:05:26+00:00","dateModified":"2016-01-19T12:05:26+00:00","description":"NEWS: Following successful solar homes microfinance push, governor Atiur Rahman seeks to clean up textiles manufacturing","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2016\/01\/19\/bangladesh-bank-governor-launches-200m-green-fund\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-GB","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2016\/01\/19\/bangladesh-bank-governor-launches-200m-green-fund\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-GB","@id":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2016\/01\/19\/bangladesh-bank-governor-launches-200m-green-fund\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/cdn.climatechangenews.com\/files\/2016\/01\/bangladesh-textile-factory.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/cdn.climatechangenews.com\/files\/2016\/01\/bangladesh-textile-factory.jpg","width":800,"height":448,"caption":"Green finance initiative will target Bangladesh's export-focused clothing industry (Flickr\/jankie)"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2016\/01\/19\/bangladesh-bank-governor-launches-200m-green-fund\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Bangladesh Bank launches $200m ‘green transformation fund’"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/","name":"Climate Home News","description":"Climate change news, analysis, commentary, video and podcasts focused on developments in global climate politics","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-GB"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/#organization","name":"Climate Home News","url":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-GB","@id":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/cdn.climatechangenews.com\/files\/2024\/01\/03155729\/Climate-Home-News-Logo-RGB-Colour.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/cdn.climatechangenews.com\/files\/2024\/01\/03155729\/Climate-Home-News-Logo-RGB-Colour.png","width":2856,"height":862,"caption":"Climate Home News"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ClimateHomeNews\/","https:\/\/x.com\/ClimateHome","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/climate-home-news","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/climatestudio"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/#\/schema\/person\/8d5e91de65d6588da32864acbca918c6","name":"Megan Darby","description":"Megan Darby is the editor of Climate Home News. She previously wrote about UK energy and water industries for leading sector publication Utility Week. She holds a Mathematics degree from Newcastle University.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/author\/megan-darby","https:\/\/x.com\/climatemegan"],"url":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/author\/megan-darby\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28332"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28332"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=28332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}