Funding remains a key problem for developing Asian economies to address the pressing problem of climate change.
This is the consensus among government officials, advocates, business leaders and experts who participated in the recently-concluded high-level dialogue on climate change held in Manila and organized by the Asian Development Bank.
Climate change adaptation and mitigation projects are quite costly. The ADB, in its report issued on Monday, said that 320 million U.S. dollars of public funds are now available to be used for climate change adaptation.
This is inadequate. Oxfam International, the UK-based advocacy group, estimates that developing countries around the world need 50 billion U.S. dollars a year to survive the impacts of climate change. The United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change ( UNFCCC) projects that this figure will rise to 250 billion U.S. dollars per year in 2020.
ADB President Haruhiko Kuroda announced Wednesday that the development bank has doubled its annual clean energy investment to 2 billion U.S. dollars to finance renewable energy projects and carbon emissions in developing Asia.
Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said that while 2 billion U.S. dollars may not be a lot money, it can act as leverage and catalyze a lot of investments that will lead to reduced carbon emissions.
"The rate of economic growth in Asia is faster than in any part of the world. So we must see that the growth takes place in a manner that doesn't lead to a proportionate growth in emissions," Pachauri said.
Stakeholders in Asia concede they're equally responsible for causing climate change, as the recent economic growth in the region was achieved at the expense of the environment. Asia now accounts for a third of total greenhouse gas emissions that lead to a steady rise in temperatures.
But they also noted that industrialized countries such as the United States and those in Western Europe, not only have the resources to finance adaptation and mitigation measures, but also are the biggest culprits of global warming. They must therefore provide stable financing that will enable developing Asia to mitigate the climate change.
"There must be a shift in the way that industrialized countries transfer resources to developing countries. This is not about giving charity to poor countries. It's about taking responsibility for one's actions," said Antonio Hill, senior policy adviser for climate change of Oxfam.
"If a country continues to emit carbon then it must (face the) consequences of its action," Hill said.
Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo made a similar appeal in her speech delivered at the closing of the two-day dialogue. "Every nation -- both developed and developing -- must assume the mantle of leadership in dealing with climate change," she said.
The President pointed out that developed nations, which account for most of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, must help developing countries in climate change adaptation and mitigation.
Asia may be home to some of the world's fastest growing economies, but it's also where 70 percent of the world's 1.3 billion poor people live. Rising temperature and the natural disasters (floods, droughts and wildfires, etc.) that it brings will affect the poor most as they don't have the resources to cope with it.
"Climate change impacts will be overwhelmingly severe for Asia. They will exacerbate existing vulnerabilities and they have the potential to throw countries back into the poverty trap," UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer said in a statement delivered by UNFCCC communications manager Eric Hall.
De Boer said that unless mitigation measures are implemented and sustained, climate change will wipe out the recent economic gains in Asia, as its erratic weather patterns threatens farm production and food security.
"Undoubtedly, developing countries need to do more to reduce the vulnerability of their populations to disasters, but climate change will make this increasingly difficult," Oxfam said in its study on the impact of climate change issued in April.
According to the Oxfam study, the steady rise in temperatures, shortening growing seasons and unpredictable rainfall patterns will hurt the livelihood of most rural poor who depend on agriculture. Oxfam added that the frequent climate-related disasters "will send poor people tumbling into a downward spiral of increasing vulnerability as their assets are eroded, resulting in longer and longer recovery times."
De Boer said funding -- or the lack of it -- is one of the most crucial issues that need to be addressed when ministers from around the world sit down in Copenhagen this December to discuss a new treaty on climate change.
"Copenhagen needs to mobilize very significant financial and technological resources to assist developing countries in their adaptation measures and additional mitigation actions," De Boer said. "The benefit for Asian countries is that a strong outcome on climate change has the potential to include significant financial support for developing countries, captured in a negotiated text."
(Xinhua News Agency June 18, 2009)
