Wealthier countries must take the lead in cutting carbon
emissions to prevent catastrophic reversals in health, education,
and poverty reduction for the world's poor, while providing
incentives for developing countries like China and India to follow
suit, according to the 2007/2008 Human Development Report (HDR) on
climate change launched in Brasilia, Brazil on November 27.
Building on the recently-released Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) Synthesis Report, the United Nations
Development Program (UNDP) HDR, entitled Fighting climate
change: Human solidarity in a divided world, sets out a
pathway for climate change negotiations in Bali, Indonesia, and
stresses that a narrow ten-year window of opportunity remains to
put it into practice.
If that window is missed, temperature rises of above two degrees
Celsius could see the disappearance of the Himalayan glaciers that
provide water and food for over two billion people, the
displacement of 22 million people in Vietnam and the destruction of
45 percent of Mekong Delta farmland as sea levels continue to rise,
the collapse of coral reefs in Indonesia on which local fishermen
depend, and annual damage costs of up to seven percent of the gross
domestic product (GDP) of small island states like Fiji, Samoa and
Vanuatu. Some could disappear completely, warns the Report.
"The carbon budget of the 21st Century -- the amount of carbon
that can be absorbed creating an even probability that temperatures
will not rise above two degrees -- is being overspent and threatens
to run out entirely by 2032," says Kevin Watkins, lead author of
the Human Development Report, "and the poor -- those with the
lightest carbon footprint and the least means to protect themselves
-- are the first victims of developed countries' energy-rich
lifestyles."
The world's richest countries have a historic responsibility to
take the lead in balancing the carbon budget by cutting emissions
by at least 80 percent by 2050, according to the Report. In
addition, they should support a new USUS$86 billion global annual
investment in substantial international adaptation efforts to
protect the world's poor. Developed countries should also adopt a
new mechanism to transfer clean energy technology to developing
countries. The Report argues that with the support of such
measures, developing Asian countries -- especially fast growing and
industrializing countries like China and India -- should also play
their part with total emission cuts of at least 20 percent by
2050.
A "nine-planet" lifestyle
Across the world, 1.6 billion poor people still rely on wood and
animal dung for fuel -- 930 million of them live in East and South
Asia. While they are left in the dark, rich countries are running
up the energy bills. If each poor person on the planet had the same
energy-rich lifestyle as the United States or Canada nine planets
would be needed to safely cope with the pollution, says Fighting
climate change.
The Report points out that even though China will overtake the
US as the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the next 10
years, a person in the US still emits on average five times more
carbon dioxide than a person in China, or over fifteen times more
than a person in India.
"The critical challenge for Asia in the face of climate change
is to expand access to affordable energy, while at the same time
decarbonizing growth," says UNDP Administrator Kemal Dervis,
"International cooperation is vital to unlock win-win scenarios
that enhance both the climate security and the energy security that
are vital for growth and poverty reduction."
The Report recommends establishing a Climate Change Mitigation
Facility (CCMF), financed by developed countries and designed to
provide incentives, including access to clean energy technology, to
guide developing countries to a greener development pathway.
This is essential because developing countries will be
responsible for an increasing share of emissions, say the authors.
For example, the current level of power generation capacity in
China is set to double by 2015 -- equivalent to current capacity in
Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom combined -- and will rise
another 60 percent by 2030. Coal is likely to account for
three-quarters of the total increase. As such, the authors stress
that addressing climate change effectively will require serious
investment in the cleanest possible coal technologies coupled with
an increase in the use of clean and renewable energy sources and
maximum energy efficiency.
"Properly financed technology transfer from rich countries to
poor countries has to be the entry price that developed countries
pay for their carbon trail," says Mr. Watkins.
Fighting "adaptation apartheid"
As the climate changes, poor people are being forced to cope
with increasing climate shocks and long term risks -- and the price
of doing so is likely to leave their prospects for human
development bankrupt, says Fighting climate change. Even if
stringent emission cuts are put into place now, the two thirds of
the world's poor that live in Asia will be increasingly vulnerable
to rising temperatures. They must be given meaningful assistance
now to adapt, stress the authors.
Yet the finance needed to support the adaptation initiatives to
protect the poor is not available, stress the authors. In fact,
says the Report, total current spending through multilateral
mechanisms on adaptation in developing countries has amounted to
only US$26 million to date -- roughly one week's worth of spending
on United Kingdom flood defenses. This is nowhere near sufficient,
says the Report, and it calls on the developed countries to support
a new global investment of USUS$86 billion annually, or 0.2 percent
of northern countries' combined GDP, in adaptation efforts to
climate-proof infrastructure and build the resilience of the poor
to the effects of climate change.
All About
Climate change,
Global warming
(China.org.cn November 28, 2007)
