Achieving small but concrete agreements on issues such as technology transfer of utmost importance
BANGKOK (AlertNet) - As the latest round of U.N. climate talks began in Mexico on Monday, achieving small but concrete agreements on issues such as technology transfer is of utmost importance to Asia, where millions of lives and livelihoods are at stake, an Asian Development Bank official told AlertNet.
“Asia lies at the centre of global efforts to address the challenges brought on by climate change,” ADB’s principal climate change specialist David McCauley said on the eve of the talks at the beach resort of Cancun, where representatives of 200 nations are expected to gather.
“The best case scenario for Cancun would be to get interim sub-agreements across a range of areas such as REDD, technology, adaptation, mitigation actions and capacity development,” he said. This will build trust in the international community and allow immediate progress in some areas, he added.
Home to more than 60 percent of the world’s population, many living in densely populated coastal cities, Asia has the highest number of people at risk from the impacts of climate change.
According to a recent global study by the World Bank, Asia and Pacific countries – where agriculture is still a dominant form of livelihood – will bear the highest costs of any region in adapting to climate change in both drier and wetter climate scenarios.
With the region’s rapidly growing industrial output predicted to outstrip those of industrialised nations soon, McCauley said Asia is also the fastest growing source of new greenhouse gas emissions.
“So it is vital for its own well being and that of the entire global community that action is taken to adjust its development so that it can continue but in a low-carbon pattern,” said McCauley, who is participating in the Cancun talks.
While virtually no one believes any global agreement will be reached in Cancun after the disappointing Copenhagen summit last year, McCauley said this year’s talks are about “taking incremental steps and maintaining momentum” and capturing parts of the negotiations that were too detailed to make it into the Copenhagen Accord.
The Copenhagen Accord, agreed last December, is a non-binding agreement by 140 nations to limit temperature rise associated with climate change to a maximum of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) or less. It includes a promise by developed nations to raise $30 billion in aid for climate-vulnerable countries over the 2010-2012 period.
LONG-RUNNING DISAGREEMENTS
The long-running U.N. climate talks have seen developing countries and emerging economies pitted against industrialised nations over issues ranging from emission controls, financing to combat climate change and the extension of the Kyoto Protocol, which ends in 2010.
While major emerging economies such as China and India prefer to hold onto the Kyoto Protocol – which binds only rich nations to limit carbon emissions, except the United States which is outside the pact – western countries are keen on a new and tougher agreement which includes limits on countries with growing emissions.
Even in the absence of a global pact, many countries in Asia have started to form policies and programmes to address climate-related problems, following numerous studies that warn governments they will face longer droughts, worse flooding and more frequent and intense extreme weather events.
Countries making up the regional bloc ASEAN are incorporating climate change adaptation programmes into a first region-wide disaster management treaty while the year-old Asia-Pacific Adaptation Network, with support from ADB and other donors, is looking to improve cooperation in the region on how to build resilience to climate change.
There has also been significant private and public investment on the development of renewable energy in Asia, especially in China, according to McCauley, who previously has said efforts by Asian nations on climate change have been under-appreciated.
DISPARATE NEEDS
Still, McCauley said it is important to continue negotiating for a global treaty to curb climate change and deal with its impacts.
“Climate change is a global problem that will eventually require a global solution and the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) must play an important part,” he said.
But for Asia, any agreement will need to take into account the disparate needs of the different nations in the region who are at various stages of development.
“The poorest and most vulnerable countries of Asia will certainly be pushing for greater attention to and financing for climate change adaptation. The forested countries like Indonesia will be pushing for a preliminary global agreement on REDD,” he said, referring to the UN scheme under which developed countries would compensate forested countries for not engaging in deforestation.
The largest economies, meanwhile, will be interested in freeing up access to clean technologies and also ensuring that if they pledge to follow a low-carbon path to future growth, that will be matched by “strong commitments from developed countries to make significant reductions in their current emissions.”
“The worst case scenario would be to have major back-sliding on agreements that had already been reached in Copenhagen,” McCauley said, noting that he believes this is an unlikely scenario.
He said there is still “a high sense of urgency in addressing the growing climate crisis among those charged with these negotiations.”
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