What happens when climate money makes pollution worse? Bishkek Transport Electrification Project

🚎💨 What happens when climate money makes pollution worse? Bishkek Transport Electrification Project

Lecture by Bermet Borubaeva @bishkek.smog

📅 1 June, 19:00
📍 Emergency Room — Project Chto Delat
📌 Brunnenstr. 43, Berlin, 10115
Free entry

🎙🌍 Europe funds climate projects across Central Asia — but what happens when that funding derails sustainability instead of building it? The earlier EBRD $23M investment in Bishkek’s trolleybuses and now it was totally wasted.

Bishkek is one of the most air-polluted cities in the world and was supposed to get cleaner. The Asian Development Bank allocated $50M to electrify public transport. But instead of expanding the existing trolleybus network, the city dismantled it — and replaced electric transport with e-buses and gas. The result? Less clean transport than before the project began.

Bishkek’s story is a warning — and it’s relevant everywhere development banks write the cheques.

When climate finance is misused, it’s not just a local problem — it’s a question of whose voice counts in the green transition.

The green transition is global. Accountability should be too.

This event is organised in cooperation with n-ost

Drawing by @bucks_coffee_stories

#BishkekSmog #ClimateJustice #Berlin #ClimateFinance #Kyrgyzstan #GreenTransition #PublicTransport #ADB #EBRD #Sustainability #ChtoDelat