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CLIMATE CHANGE: Who Will Pay the Price?
By Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES, Dec 16 (IPS) - If the poor, developing countries are not
responsible for climate change, then why should they have to pay the price
for what the industrialised countries have done?
This was the poignant question put forward on Thursday by Bangladeshi State
Minister for the Environment Jafrul Islam Chowdhury, during the 10th session
of the Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate
Change (COP-10), currently underway in Buenos Aires.
Chowdhury's country paid a steep price this year for the consequences of
global warming and climate change, as devastating floods caused over 1,000
deaths and enormous material damages and losses.
The Bangladeshi minister was speaking at a high-level panel discussion on
the impacts of climate change, adaptation measures and sustainable
development.
In accordance with the U.N. climate change convention, mitigation and
adaptation are the two main focuses for dealing with global warming: on the
one hand, reducing emissions of "greenhouse gases", which trap heat in the
earth's atmosphere, and on the other hand, helping developing countries to
confront the impacts of climate change and lessen the damages.
In the ten years since the convention entered into force, the primary
emphasis has been placed on mitigation efforts. One of the main results is
the Kyoto Protocol, which calls on the industrialised countries to curb
greenhouse gas emissions. Ratified by 30 industrialised countries, the
protocol will enter into force next February.
Nevertheless, the delegates from the developing world came to Buenos Aires
determined to make this conference of parties the "adaptation COP", as Enele
Sopoaga from the Tuvalu delegation stressed at the opening.
Their main goal is to push the industrialised countries to commit resources
to help the developing nations deal with the climate change effects already
being felt.
Osvaldo Canziani, co-chairman of a working group established by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has even suggested that
governments begin to work on drafting a protocol that specifically addresses
adaptation, since this is the key concern for the developing world.
Roque Pedace of Friends of the Earth International, a federation of
environmental organisations from around the world, told IPS that these are
"legitimate demands on the part of the developing countries, because they
are the main victims of climate change."
The industrialised countries must understand that if they continue to
release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the cost of adaptation will be
increasingly higher, he added.
According to statistics from the German-based reinsurance provider Munich
Re, cited at the conference by the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP), natural disasters cost the international insurance industry more
than 35 billion dollars in 2004, double the amount paid out in 2003.
UNEP representatives pointed out that if the costs of uninsured damage were
added, the total would be roughly 90 billion dollars.
Nevertheless, progress has been slow in securing commitments to reduce the
emissions that lead to global warming, and the industrialised nations refuse
to recognise the urgency of adaptation measures, something that is reflected
by the lack of sufficient contributions to the fund created to this purpose,
Pedace said.
The European Union delegation announced in Buenos Aries that it will
increase its contribution to adaptation efforts from 100 million to 360
million dollars annually as of 2005. However, many believe that this amount
is still insufficient.
Pedace noted that the last flood to hit the eastern Argentine province of
Santa Fe caused one billion dollars in damage.
In the meantime, conservative estimates from the World Bank place the losses
from the flooding in Bangladesh at 2.2 billion dollars.
The Bangladeshi government had calculated that the total losses in crops,
housing and other buildings, highways and bridges represented close to seven
billion dollars, but the country received only 237 million dollars in aid
from the Asian Development Bank.
"We need more assistance for adaptation," Chowdhury told the panel. He
pointed out that Bangladesh uses natural gas as fuel, and has the lowest
greenhouse gas emissions in the world, yet it is one of the nations most
vulnerable to climate change.
Other speakers at the panel discussion included the representatives of
Tuvalu, a tiny Pacific island whose very existence is threatened by the rise
in sea level, Hungary, Mexico, Britain, Senegal and Australia, the only
industrialised country besides the United States that has not ratified the
Kyoto Protocol.
At a session held the previous day, Dutch State Secretary for the
Environment Pieter van Geel noted that his country is also highly
vulnerable, since 50 percent of its territory is below sea level, but he
admitted that the Netherlands, unlike the developing countries, has the
money to confront this vulnerability.
(END/2004)
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