\n
![](\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/GettyImages-2184491912.jpg?w=2048\")
<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n
In the three months since becoming Bangladesh\u2019s interim leader following a student-led revolution, Muhammad Yunus has endured political turmoil, impatient cries for elections, and destructive flooding across the low-lying nation.<\/p>\n
Now, the Nobel Peace Prize winner has been thrust into a brawl over money to help poorer countries deal with climate change\u2014and he is not pleased about it.<\/p>\n
The 84-year-old micro-finance pioneer, who took over after the toppling of autocratic leader Sheikh Hasina in August, likened the haggling at the UN COP29 climate summit to a \u201cfish market\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s very humiliating, for nations to come and ask for money to fix\u2026[the] problem that others caused for them,\u201d Yunus told AFP in an interview in Azerbaijan, which is hosting the talks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy should we be dragged here to negotiate? You know the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nations hope to land a deal at COP29 that boosts funding for climate action in developing nations like Bangladesh, which are least responsible for global warming, but most at its mercy.<\/p>\n
Some want $1 trillion a year to cover the enormous cost of shifting their economies to clean energy, and adapting to ever-more erratic and extreme weather.<\/p>\n
But rich countries\u2014whose rise to prosperity and associated carbon emissions have driven global warming\u2014are reluctant to commit such large sums and want others to chip in.<\/p>\n
The talks have hit a wall, frustrating leaders of climate-imperilled nations who left behind populations in dire straits to travel to Baku.<\/p>\n
Among them is Yunus, who said his riverine homeland had been smashed by six punishing floods\u2014\u201deach one worse than the previous\u201d\u2014in the short time since he took over.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of thousands of people were forced into emergency shelters in the floods, which also destroyed rice crops.<\/p>\n
Bangladesh is among the world\u2019s most vulnerable nations to climate change, with large areas made up of deltas where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers wind towards the sea.<\/p>\n
The country of 170 million is particularly at risk of devastating floods and cyclones\u2014disasters that only stand to accelerate as the planet keeps warming.<\/p>\n
Yunus said it was \u201cnot a secret\u201d that rich nations would have to help poorer ones adapt and they should \u201cfigure out how much is needed\u2014not me\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not something we are demanding out of your generosity. We\u2019re asking because you are the cause of this problem,\u201d he said bluntly.<\/p>\n
Yunus said juggling a peaceful democratic transition and a floods response was \u201cdifficult\u201d enough and adding a flight to Baku to feud over climate finance didn\u2019t help.<\/p>\n
Impatience for elections in Bangladesh has gained pace since Hasina\u2019s ouster, and the silver-haired technocrat said he shared concerns for peace and security in the nation of 170 million.<\/p>\n
A free and fair vote would come as promised, he said, but the speed of democratic reforms \u201cwill decide how quick the election will be\u201d.<\/p>\n
He wouldn\u2019t offer a date or timeline, but said the caretaker administration was hoping to build \u201ca quick consensus\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are the interim government, so our period should be as short as possible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n