Irish charity appeals for funds to support families in Bangladesh forced to flee their homes due to floods

August 29, 2024

‘I couldn’t carry my son who has physical disabilities, so I left him behind hoping he’ll be safe’

ActionAid Ireland is appealing to the Irish public to support families in Bangladesh forced to flee their homes due to climate-change induced flooding.

Bangladesh has been on the receiving end of the climate crisis with the latest floods coming just three months after Cyclone Remal, the most devastating cyclone to strike the country in recent years.

The flooding has been reported in 11 districts, with at least 18 people killed and 5 million others stranded in low-lying areas following heavy monsoon rains.

Over 800,000 families are currently living in waterlogged areas, with nearly 200,000 people seeking refuge in flood shelters. Schools in some regions have been converted into flood shelters for the affected families.

ActionAid Ireland CEO, Karol Balfe, said countries like Bangladesh are on the front lines of the climate crisis, and she paid tribute to her ActionAid colleagues in Bangladesh who are working around the clock to support those who are now homeless.

Ms Balfe said: “The climate crisis is caused by rich, developing countries. But It is countries like Bangladesh, which has negligible emissions, that are bearing the brunt.”

“People in Bangladesh are showing super resilience in the face of crisis, They need immediate funds to address the impacts of climate change and frequent disasters. They need to recover from the losses and damage they have faced, as well as to build resilience to future impacts and take on green development pathways.”

ActionAid Bangladesh, together with its local partners, are already supporting the affected communities in Sadar and Sonaimuri areas of Noakhali District, and will start responding in Feni District as soon as the water levels recede.

Through a youth-led initiative, families in the flood shelters have received cooked food and other emergency supplies such as oral rehydration solution (ORS), emergency medicine, water purification tablets and dignity kits. ActionAid is also providing psychosocial first aid support for the displaced families, alongside distribution of dignity kits.

Youth volunteers have divided into teams, and are gathering information from hard-to-reach areas to provide food relief to people who are in remote and waterlogged parts of Noakhali. They are facing challenges because large boats cannot reach these areas, so small boats are being used to carry food and other relief materials to support the flood-impacted people with food relief, as they are in a dire situation.”

Families who have lost everything in the ongoing Bangladesh flooding have shared their painful stories of the day the floodwaters came gushing into their homes, forcing them to leave all they had.

They are now living in flood shelters, surviving on the scarce drinking water and food available as roads have been cut off, hampering aid delivery efforts.

Shukuri Begum, 56, a resident of Shonaimuri Upazilla in Noakhali, one of the worst-hit districts, recalls: “This flood took away my home – it sank into the pond. We were terrified and fled to a neighbour’s house with my grandchildren. But we couldn’t stay there long; it wasn’t safe anymore. We came here by boat to find shelter. I have a son with physical disabilities, and we couldn’t bring him with us. We had to stack beds and leave him on top, hoping he would be safe. I don’t know what’s waiting for us.”

Nazrul Islam, Bondattor village, Kabirhat, Noakhali District, says: “My family and I are in deep trouble. At first, the floodwater reached our waists, and as it rose to our chests, we had no choice but to leave our home and everything behind. Now, we’re in this shelter with my children, and I have no idea what’s happened to our house. I don’t even know if anything will be left when we can finally return. Everything is destroyed. Please, help us.”

Protestors at COP 28 in Dubai. Photo: Konrad Skotnicki.

Belfast Climate Change March, 2019. Photo: Trócaire.

The Profit Driving the Crisis

Despite their overwhelming contribution to global emissions, fossil fuel companies continue to attract significant financial backing—driven by their enduring profitability. This is starkly illustrated by the case of ExxonMobil, the top fossil fuel investment held by asset managers based in Ireland. In 2023, ExxonMobil reported €33.63 billion ($36 billion) in profit. That is almost twice the GDP of Botswana (€18.1 billion) and nearly three times Namibia’s GDP (€11.5 billion).

Ireland plays a hugely disproportionate role in facilitating investments into fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil. In 2023, the investments made into fossil fuel companies by investment managers based in Ireland generated an estimated 72.5 million tons of CO2e. This is more than the CO2e emissions for the entire country of Ireland—and more than ten times that generated by Sierra Leone.

The Global Human Impact

The climate crisis is here, now, and it is causing disproportionate harm in the Global South. In Bangladesh, rising sea levels and increasingly severe cyclones are displacing coastal communities, with projections indicating that 17% of the entire country could be underwater by 2050. The legally binding Paris Agreement on climate change explicitly acknowledges the importance of tackling private finance. Its three overarching goals are: keeping below 1.5C of warming; increasing adaptation and making finance flows consistent with low emissions and resilience.

This gives a clear mandate for action: both tax reform and corporate regulation are needed to tackle financial flows, and both nationally in Ireland and at EU level, ‘polluter pays’ taxes are lacking and regulation of the financial sector remains weak and fragmented. While EU regulation exists, it is designed more to nudge investors toward more sustainable investment practices by increasing transparency and reporting levels than to enforce strict standards. And it is moving in the wrong direction: the recently passed EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive excluded investments; and now the EU Commission’s Omnibus legislative proposal threatens to undo the limited gains made on climate plans, as well as blocking future attempts for stronger action at national level.

The Risk of Inaction

Fossil fuel investment is too profitable to remain weakly regulated. If Ireland continues with its current strategy of encouraging FDI at all costs, and relying on weak EU regulation, we are headed for catastrophe. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change has repeatedly warned that every fraction of a degree beyond 1.5°C brings irreversible consequences: collapsed ice sheets, vanishing coral reefs, and extreme weather events that will make vast regions of the planet uninhabitable. And yet, companies are developing oil and gas fields that could push global warming beyond 2°C.

Our research found that 91% of the investments made into fossil fuel companies by investment managers based in Ireland were to companies that have plans for fossil fuel expansion like these. Ireland cannot afford inaction on this issue.

About This Research

The figures in this report regarding investment from Ireland are based on new research commissioned by ActionAid Ireland and Trócaire. In the paper, we uncover the scale of fossil fuel investment through Ireland, who the investors are, and in which fossil fuel companies they are investing. We analyse the current regulatory framework and explain why it is inadequate—and moving in the wrong direction. And we make specific recommendations for change, which are summarised below.

Summary of Recommendations

Regulate the private financial sector
Ireland must end its outsized role as an enabler of destructive fossil fuel investment. Ireland should introduce a strong gender-responsive national human rights and environmental due diligence framework which includes the regulation of investors with respect to human rights and the environment and climate. The transposition of the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive could achieve this if downstream activities are included and the Omnibus proposal is rejected. Ireland should prohibit investments in fossil fuel expansion and require investors to implement climate transition plans consistent with a 1.5°C climate limit.

Endorse the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty
Ireland should endorse developing a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to curb fossil fuel expansion and commit to a fair and funded phase out of fossil fuels.

Support tax justice
Ireland should support bold and fair new global tax rules through the UN Framework Convention on Tax, should adopt all OECD BEPS measures, and should conduct an updated and comprehensive spillover analysis of its tax policy. Ireland should take coordinated action globally, at the EU level and domestically to introduce a range of new taxes to mobilise finance needed for climate justice, based on ‘polluter pays’ and social equity principles such as wealth taxes for the highest earners, climate damages tax on investors, fossil fuel production taxes and levies on aviation and shipping.

Finance a just transition
Ireland must also meet its fair share climate finance obligations under Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, and pay our ecological debt to the Global South. Ireland should support conditionality-free debt cancellation for countries on the front lines of the climate crisis, commit to a new UN Framework Convention on Sovereign Debt, moving debt negotiations from the IMF to the UN, and to a debt workout mechanism that is fully representative and fair.