DHAKA, July 27, 2009 (AFP) - Bangladesh has planned a raft of projects costing $4.35 billion to fight the effects of climate change on its impoverished millions, a minister said Monday.

The country has been forecast to bear the brunt of climate change, and scientists say floods, droughts and cyclones have already increased.

Environment minister Mustafizur Rahman told AFP his government was working on projects costing 30,000 crore taka ($4.35 billion) to adapt to the effects of global warming.

"The money would be spent on building and raising embankments and roads, constructing thousands of shelters, dredging major rivers, planting trees along the coastal belts, and reclaiming land from the sea," he said.

The Nobel Prize-winning United Nations Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says rising sea levels will devour 17 percent of Bangladesh's total land mass by 2050, leaving at least 20 million people homeless.

"We are going to approach the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and rich nations for funding the projects," Rahman said. "We will also make the case in the upcoming UN climate summit in Copenhagen in December."

Bangladesh has said rich nations must pay the bill as it is one of the world's lowest emitters of harmful carbon dioxide.