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Paper short abstract:

Centering on the environment versus development debate that has grown in Bangladesh in recent years, the study will shed light on the conflict between the state and environmentalist organizations regarding coal powered plants, with specific reference to the plant being built near the Sunderbans.

Paper long abstract:

Bangladesh has been known as one of the countries in the Global South that are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The country is signatory to the Paris Agreement of 2015 as such, and national leaders have enthusiastically participated in COP25 to emphasize the need to take environmental justice and future climate migration from the region into consideration. However, when it comes to its energy policies, the state has shown little concern for the climate in the global dimension. Bangladesh is planning to launch 27 coal power plants in the current decade, much to the dismay of local and international environmentalist organizations which have consistently raised voice in this issue. The conflict had heated first in 2015 when the government had announced the establishment of a coal plant near the country's mangrove forest, the Sunderbans. Environmentalist and civic pressure groups had strongly opposed such a plan that violated the limit of distance of industrial endeavors from forests and a long environmentalist movement called 'Save Sunderbans' has been underway.

The present study will explore the environmental discourses underlying the Sunderbans movement and other environmentalist movements in Bangladesh that critique the state for giving preference to economic growth and critically examine the role and action of different local and international stakeholders, from local people to the UNESCO, under such circumstances. It will also take into account the political-ecological context of the burgeoning coal powered energy in Asia and explore its implications at the local, national and international scale.