Category: Energy and Power

The climate crisis has become a continent-wide economic and security emergency for Europe, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell told the European Parliament.

Stiell said extreme heat, fl oods and droughts were already causing deaths, damaging infrastructure and businesses, disrupting trade and energy supplies, and pushing up food and insurance costs.

He cited an estimate that this summer’s climate extremes could cost Europe around pound 180 billion through lost productivity and disruptions to food, energy and transport.

He warned that Europe’s dependence on volatile fossil-fuel imports was worsening infl ation, raising energy costs and undermining economic and energy security.

Accelerating the transition to clean energy, he said, offers Europe a safer and more affordable path while creating jobs and investment opportunities.

Stiell noted that renewables now provide around half of Europe’s power and that solar energy alone saved more than pound 30 billion in avoided gas imports during the fi rst six months of the Middle East confl ict.

Globally, cleanenergy investment exceeded $2 trillion last year, about twice the level of fossil-fuel investment.

He urged the European Union to maintain its climate leadership and support vulnerable countries, while calling for stronger international cooperation ahead of COP31 in Trkiye.

Current policies put the world on track for around 2.6°C of warming, he said, well above the 1.5°C goal, but concerted action could still bring temperatures back down toward that limi

Bangladesh became the 17th-largest importer of US liquefi ed natural gas (LNG) in the fi rst half of 2026, with purchases rising 61% yearon-year amid disruptions to traditional supplies from the Middle East.

According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), Bangladesh imported 50.23 billion cubic feet (bcf) of US LNG during JanuaryJune, compared with 31.27 bcf in the same period of 2025.

India ranked 10th among the top 20 buyers, while Pakistan was not on the list.

US LNG exports averaged 17.4 billion cubic feet per day during the fi rst half of 2026, up 23% from a year earlier.

The EIA expects exports to average 17.3 bcf per day in the second half of 2026 and rise to 18.7 bcf per day in the fi rst half of 2027.

Prime Minister Tarique Rahman has said the government may consider extracting high-quality coal from Phulbari in Dinajpur to help meet the country’s energy needs and save foreign currency, but any decision would priorities the resettlement and livelihoods of affected communities.

Responding to a supplementary question from lawmaker Sabikun Nahar in Parliament recently, the prime minister said Phulbari coal is among the best-quality coal in the world and could benefi t the country if it helps address the energy crisis.

He acknowledged that open-pit mining could affect agricultural land and settlements and said the government would fi rst assess how affected people could be properly resettled without disrupting their livelihoods.

Local communities should also benefi t if the project is eventually implemented, he added.

Tarique Rahman said environmental concerns would receive due importance before any decision is taken.

FUSA has begun the phased rollout of its Solar Core Fusion Extraction program, aiming to move from national participation to industrial access and eventually smaller commercial and domestic applications.

The company said the patent rights supporting the program have received an independent thirdparty valuation prepared under International Valuation Standards, with a published lower-end fi gure of US$3.4 trillion.

According to FUSA, the program is based on its ‘Star Law’, or Entanglement Relativity, and seeks to develop a method for directly accessing fusion energy from the Solar Core.

FUSA said its experimental program included four IBM Kingston-Marrakesh quantum-hardware campaigns, each involving 330,000 circuit executions.

The company reported positive ‘informationized energy transmission’ and successful work extraction across all tests, with the fi nal campaign recording a transmitted value exceeding 5 TW.

The program uses a receiving terminal called the ‘Dave’ transducer to perform conditional quantum work extraction.

FUSA plans to begin deployment with governments and energy-intensive industries, subject to applicable legislation and electrical homologation.

Countries are increasingly learning from each other on how to translate their national climate commitments into practical action under a mandate adopted at COP30, according to UN Climate Change.

The Global Mutirão Decision adopted at COP30 called on the UNFCCC secretariat to organize peer exchanges on developing and implementing Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

So far, at least 22 such events have been held across the six regions covered by the UNFCCC secretariat and its Regional Collaboration Centers (RCCs).

The exchanges are taking place across Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, Asia and the Pacifi c, and Africa, with additional events planned in the coming months.

The focus varies by region, ranging from climate fi nance and rural electrifi cation to institutional coordination and carbon-market development.

In the Pacifi c, countries are discussing how small island administrations can coordinate limited resources and improve access to international climate fi nance.

In East and Southern Africa, Seychelles has shared its experience establishing a dedicated climate fi nance unit, while Senegal has shared lessons from its solar rural electrifi cation program with Togo, Burkina Faso and Cameroon.

The Caribbean is linking peer learning directly with access to fi nance, bringing countries together with institutions including the Green Climate Fund and regional development banks.

In Latin America, countries including Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Uruguay and Costa Rica have highlighted the need to involve fi nance, planning and sectoral ministries in NDC implementation rather than leaving it solely to environment ministries.

The UN Climate Change secretariat said the exchanges demonstrate that countries do not have to navigate NDC implementation alone.

By sharing both successful approaches and lessons from setbacks, the peer-learning process is helping countries develop more practical and fi nanceable climate action plans ahead of COP31 in Trkiye.

The latest news is good.

The gas supply has returned to the level that existed before the July 21 easing a crisis that severely affected industrial production, electricity generation and kitchens for two months.

Regasifi cation of imported liquefi ed natural gas (LNG) increased to nearly to the regular volume on September 15 after the full operation of two FSRUs (fl oating storage and regasifi cation unit) located at Maheshkhali in the Bay of Bengal.

According to the Daily Star newspaper the total gas supply reached 2,610 million cubic feet per day (MMCFD).

The volume breaks up as 990 MMCFD from the two FSRUs -one operated by US company Excelerate Energy and the other by Bangladesh’s Summit Group – and 1620 MMCFD supplied from the country’s own gas fi elds.

The volume of gas supply was at 2,600-2650 MMCFD before the July 21 disruption.

At that time the LNG terminals has been handling 1,000 MMCFD of LNG.

It has been a collective sigh of relief.

Factories have started receiving gas, the electricity generation has improved, while the pressure of cooking gas is also showing some improvements.

All have suffered a lot for the two months.

This has been a welcome development, but the crisis of gas supply is far being resolved.

With the domestic supply of natural gas declining Bangladesh’s dependence on imports of the fuel is increasing.

The supply of LNG from Qatar has been disrupted for about six months due to the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Bangladesh has now signed a deal with the United States to buy 117 cargoes of LNG through 2038 amid criticism it will be pricier from the gas purchased from Qatar and other sources.

There was a time when Bangladesh worried little about the supply of natural gas as its domestic production was good enough with a healthy reserve.

Currently, Bangladesh produces around 1,600 to 1,620 MMCFD of natural gas, far short of the total national demand exceeding 3,800 MMCFD.

The daily gas between the demand and the supply is estimated at 1,200 MMCFD.

This has meant adoption of a policy to meet the defi cit through imports through government-to-government deals and direct spot purchase.

This policy has been under scanner since its adoption.

The problem with the imports has been the availability of gas when the country needs and the volatility in price.

First the Covid-19 pandemic and then the RussiaUkraine war and now the ongoing USIsraeli war on Iran have made Bangladesh to suffer.

The problem is showing no sign of easing with Iran-backed Houthi rebels intensifi ed their attacks on Saudi Arabia affecting shipment of ships through Bab-el-Mandeb, a waterway crucial for trading.

Not only is supply disrupted, but the price of oil has shot beyond $110.

Covid-19 is gone, but not the wars.

With the confl icts raging Bangladesh, like many other countries, are getting the hit really hard.

The July 21 accident at one of the two existing FSRUs has exposed a weakness that should have been taken care of much earlier.

Two terminals for storage and regasifi cation are not enough considering the demand.

Technical faults, accidents and even natural disasters can cause heavy disruptions as had been the case recently.

So the new government BNP is making fresh moves.

It has decided to build three more LNG terminals to boost supply of gas to the national grid with priorities given to industries and electricity generation.

Three of the terminals will be fl oating and two landbased.

One of the three FSRUs will be located at Kutubjom in deep water off Maheshkhali under a government-togovernment arrangement.

This Cabinet committee approved the proposal on July 28 and the terminal will be built by a Chinese company.

Besides, the government has decided to drill another 150 wells in the renewed search for gas from the domestic sources

The government will monitor global energy prices for three months before deciding on any revision of domestic fuel prices, as rising international costs put growing pressure on energy subsidies.

The Finance Ministry has instructed the Energy and Mineral Resources Division to prepare a price adjustment proposal after the observation period.

A six-member committee, headed by Additional Secretary Md Hasanul Matin, has been formed to assess global price trends, subsidy requirements and outstanding payments to independent power producers (IPPs).

The move comes amid a sharp increase in subsidy requirements, particularly for LNG.

Against an initial Tk6,000 crore allocation for LNG subsidies in the current fi scal year, the government has already provided around Tk7,000 crore, including outstanding payments.

Severe fl ooding in Nepal’s Bhotekoshi river system has effectively halted electricity exports to Bangladesh, with Nepal’s overall power exports falling sharply after several hydropower plants were damaged.

Nepal normally exports around 1,000MW during the wet season, but exports have dropped to about 650MW following the August 26 fl oods.

The 22.1MW Chilime and 24MW Trishuli hydropower projects, which supply electricity to Bangladesh through India, have been damaged and remain offl ine.

The Nepal Electricity Authority said it has asked India to allow electricity from alternative projects to be supplied to Bangladesh.

It is also working to restore damaged generation and transmission infrastructure.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on September 9 gave in-principle approval to a proposal for implementing a Waste-toEnergy power generation project in the Chattogram City Corporation area on a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) basis.

The approvals were given at the CCEA meeting held at the Cabinet Division in the city with Finance Minister Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury in the chair.

The proposal was submitted by the Local Government Division.

Chattogram, the country’s second-largest city and a major commercial and industrial hub, generates a substantial volume of municipal solid waste every day

Novatek Middle East has proposed a $950 million gravity-based structure (GBS) LNG terminal in the Bay of Bengal as an alternative to Bangladesh’s planned land-based facility at Matarbari.

The company presented the preliminary concept to Petrobangla, proposing a fi xed offshore terminal with 7.5 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of regasifi cation capacity.

Novatek estimates the facility would cost about 21% less than a conventional 7.5MTPA land-based terminal, estimated at $1.2 billion.

The fi gures, however, have not been independently verifi ed.

The proposed GBS could be built in 30-36 months and have a design life of 60-80 years.

Possible sites include deep-sea areas near Maheshkhali and Matarbari.

The facility would send regasifi ed LNG to the national grid through a subsea pipeline.

The proposal is still at an early stage, and Novatek has not submitted a formal proposal.