The Bangladesh government has cut a deal with India to build a 1320 Megawatt coal plant in the Sundarbans forest and is refusing to back down from it -- no matter the cost to the people nearby, or the country's climate future.
The Rampal coal plant would require transporting millions of tons of coal through narrow waterways, and further erode the forest's cyclone protections -- not to mention put surrounding communities at risk of toxic pollution of every kind.
UNESCO has the power to send an international signal to the Indian and Bangladeshi governments that they cannot continue to put coal and profit above the communities that live in and around the mangrove forests by listing the Sundarbans as a World Heritage Site in Danger. Please sign the petition to add to the pressure!
Tell UNESCO World Heritage Committee:
In Australia, Bangladesh, Kenya, Turkey and more, coal and climate change pose an immediate threat to some of the world’s greatest natural and cultural places. But UNESCO, the international body responsible for protecting these places, has gone silent.
We call on the UNESCO World Heritage Committee to demand that governments comply with the Paris Agreement and stop coal and other fossil fuel developments that are fuelling climate change and destroying World Heritage sites around the globe.
Many civilisation heritage sites are threatened by coal development in Turkey. Among these are the Hecate temple in Lagina (Yatağan), the ancient port city of Kyme, the Byzantine fortress of Pegae, and the Ilgın – Çavuşçugöl natural reserve. Many more could be threatened if Turkey pursues it’s plan to build even more coal plants.
Up to 50% of the Great Barrier Reef may be dead already thanks to warming oceans. UNESCO has acknowledged the threat once before in a issued a report which was later removed after objections from the Australian government — a clear sign that the government’s coal addiction is speaking louder than scientific consensus.
In Bangladesh, the government is building a 1320 Megawatt coal plant in the Sundarbans forest — a UNESCO heritage site and home of the endangered Royal Bengal tiger and gangetic dolphins.
The Kenyan government has proposed to build a $ 2 billion coal-fired power plant in Lamu county, along with a port and a transport corridor (linking Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, and South Sudan).
Lamu Islands is a UNESCO World heritage site, and extremely rich in both ecological and cultural diversity. The area is endowed with various plant and animal species on the mainland, in addition to being home to East Africa’s richest marine ecology which attracts thousands of tourists annually.
What better time to cancel the Rampal coal plant than now, when the world and Bangladesh are rethinking their reliance on coal to generate electricity. If built, the legacy of this toxic coal plant would shroud the advances the government has made on renewables.
Bangladesh can very well do without Rampal.
New footage shows the extent of damage from coal development in the Sundarbans mangrove forest – so will the World Heritage summit do all it can to save it from coal?
The Sundarbans has seen some of the world’s most violent hurricanes, thousands of years of changing riverbeds, rise and fall of civilizations. Lamu have survived centuries of people’s movements, political rivalries, sometimes even wars. Throughout that time our people built patient and respectful relationships with these delicate sites.
