Every once in a while, a document comes along that forces us to rethink the boundaries of what we believe is possible. The Global Justice Report—launched in Paris on June 4, 2026, by the World Inequality Lab as part of its Global Justice Project—is such a document. Its central claim is ambitious: every country on earth could reach an average monthly income of €5,000 by 2100; the poorest half of humanity could increase its share of global wealth from 2 to 30 percent; and the billionaire class’s share could shrink from 6 to 0.05 percent—all while limiting global warming to 1.8 degree Celsius instead of the more than 4 degree Celsius implied by current policy trajectories.
This is not some utopian pamphlet. Apparently, it is the first fully quantifiable attempt to model four areas that are typically kept in different rooms during debates: global redistribution, reformation of the international financial structure, energy transformation, and consumption patterns. The authors’ prescriptions rest on three simultaneous transformations—rapid decarbonisation; a move towards “sufficiency” (through reduced working hours, lower material extraction, modified diets, and changes in land use); and significant reductions in income, wealth, and power inequalities. To finance these changes, the authors propose a Global Justice Fund equivalent to an annual average of 10.3 percent of global GDP, supported by measures including a wealth tax of up to 20 percent on billionaires and a top marginal income tax rate of 90 percent.
I certainly disagree with the authors’ arithmetic for a 90 percent tax and the politics of their proposed justice fund. However, the report uses language that many in Bangladesh may recognise. What is this call for redistribution within planetary boundaries if not a secular articulation of a principle that has long existed in our own intellectual/religious traditions—that wealth has social claims upon it; that excessive concentration of wealth is a moral hazard; and that justice and public interest must be central to how we measure economic progress?
Butwhy should Bangladesh care about a report concerning billionaires and carbon budgets when the country is in talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over future financial support? Because it represents exactly the point in time described in the report, with extreme inequality, vulnerability to climate change, and persistent gaps in state capacity combining to create a formidable challenge for the citizens.
Let me begin with inequality. According to the World Inequality Database, Bangladesh’s wealthiest 10 percent receive approximately 41 percent of national income while the bottom half receive barely 19 percent. On wealth, the situation is even bleaker: according to the World Inequality Report 2026, the top 1 percent now account for almost 25 percent of Bangladesh’s total wealth, and the top decile accounts for almost 58 percent. In contrast, the lower 50 percent of the population holds only about 4.7 percent.
Moreover, although Bangladesh emits less than half a percent of the world’s greenhouse gases, it is among the most vulnerable. Approximately 70 percent of our land is less than a metre above sea level; by 2030, nearly a quarter of our delta’s population may face severe flooding, and nearly 90 percent may experience extreme heat. In essence, the Global Justice Report’s argument that those least responsible for warming should receive greater support in adapting to its consequences has direct relevance for Bangladesh.
Lastly, Bangladesh’s tax-to-GDP ratio remains among the lowest in the world, at around 7 percent, far below many peer countries. Evidently, a state unable to mobilise sufficient revenue cannot adequately fund schools, embankments, or social programmes, nor can it finance a green transition. The Global Justice Report proposes taxing the world’s richest; Bangladesh, unfortunately, has yet to learn to tax its own.
The report’s largest tools—a global wealth tax, a world sovereign fund—are far removed from Bangladesh’s ability to access. And these depend on great-power cooperation, but those powers do not seem to possess an appetite for it. Bangladesh cannot afford to wait for a global agreement on such arrangements. But it can, and should, apply the report’s underlying logic domestically.
What Bangladesh can do
Bangladesh should first view revenue as the base of justice rather than merely solvency. Raising the tax-to-GDP ratio towards 12-14 percent over the next decade—using a fairer VAT system combined with functional property taxation and the removal of unjustified exemptions and preferential treatment for the wealthy—could be one of Bangladesh’s most redistributive acts.
Secondly, Bangladesh should tax wealth where it is concentrated: in land and urban property. Implementing a modernised digital valuation system and establishing an effective recurring property tax would allow the state to target the same asset class in which its top 1 percent has entrenched itself. Thirdly, Bangladesh should explore how zakat could be integrated into its social protection framework rather than treated solely as a charitable act. Research by me and my colleagues shows that an effectively institutionalised zakat system coordinated by the state could funnel real resources to its impoverished half—the very group targeted by the Global Justice Report. Establishing an openly governed national zakat fund would provide Bangladesh with its indigenous version of a justice fund.
Fourthly, Bangladesh should also utilise endowments to build climate resilience. Waqf-based financing can help construct embankments, cyclone shelters, and clean-energy projects in vulnerable regions, merging Islamic endowment finance with adaptation efforts. Fifth, Bangladesh should establish modest carbon pricing mechanisms and allocate generated revenue back to poor households, thereby ensuring that “sufficiency” never results in taxation of the poor. The report explicitly states that burdens and benefits must be shared equitably, which is especially applicable to Bangladesh.
Sixth, Bangladesh should issue sovereign green sukuk to finance the implementation of the Delta Plan 2100, creating a foundational benchmark yield curve that would help its shallow capital markets while also supporting climate resilience. Seventh, the country should demand, together with both the Bridgetown Initiative and the Vulnerable Twenty (V20) Group, that its owed climate finance be provided as grants rather than loans.
Many may dismiss the Global Justice Report as a radical vision detached from political realities. However, for Bangladesh, it serves primarily as a mirror. It reflects a country that promotes Vision 2041 while collecting less revenue than virtually every other nation on earth; a country that celebrates growth while its wealthiest quarter continues to pull ahead; and a country that faces the frontline of an emergency it had no role in causing. The report argues that a better world is economically feasible. But is Bangladesh institutionally prepared to create a better Bangladesh?
Dr M Kabir Hassan is professor and Moffett chair in finance at the University of New Orleans in the US, recipient of the 2016 IsDB Prize in Islamic banking and finance, and member of the AAOIFI Ethics and Governance Board.
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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