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POSTSCRIPT

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: Issues on Global Warming

Neeman A Sobhan
***"Will you teach your children what we have taught our children! That the earth is our mother! What befalls the earth, befalls all of the sons of the earth. This we know, the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth***
Delegates from some 160 countries are meeting in Kyoto. Japan from Dec 1-10 for a UN-sponsored conference on climate change, to work out an agreement among industrial nations on binding reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, principally carbon dioxide, by the year 2010. hoping to slow the rate of global warming. Some 2000 scientists appointed by the UN have already warned that it is necessary to reduce emissions by 50-70 per cent immediately, and to continue reductions in the future to preclude environmental disaster.
Most people are already aware of the implication of global climate change and the greenhouse effect. The composition of the earth's atmosphere is a primary determinant of the planet's temperature, which in turn establishes the conditions and limits for all life on earth. Without the heat trapping properties of so-called greenhouse gases, which make up more than 1 or 2% of the earth's atmosphere.'the average surface temperature of the earth would be similar to that of Mars: -60 degrees Fahrenheit (-16 degrees Celsius).
The main greenhouse gases are water vapor(H20). carbon dioxide (C02). methane (CH4). nitrous oxide(N2OO. and halocarbons (like CFC-11 and CFC-12). In computer based simulation models, rising concentrations of greenhouse gases nearly always produce an increase in the average temperature of the earth. Rising temperatures may. in turn, produce changes in weather and in the level of the oceans that might prove disruptive to current patterns of land use and human settlement, as well as to existing eco-systems.
Scientists warn that current trends in greenhouse gas emissions are likely to cause the average global temperature to increase by 1-3.5 degrees C over the next 100 years. As a result, global sea-level is expected to rise by 15 to 95 cm and climate zones to shift towards the poles by 150 to 550 km in the mid latitudes. Forests, deserts, range lands, and other unmanaged ecosystems would face new climatic stresses, as would human societies, health, and infrastructure.
Concern about the effects of rising atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases remained largely the province of atmospheric scientists and cllmtologists until the mld-1980’s, when a series of international scientific workshops and conferences began to move
the topic onto the agenda of United Nations specialized agencies, particularly, the world Meteorological Office. The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) was established under the auspices of the UN in late 1988. to accumulate available scientific research on climate change, and to provide advice to policymakers A aeries of international conferences provided the impetus for an international treaty aimed at limiting the human impact on climate.
In December 1990. the UN established the Intergovernmental Negotiating •Committee for a Framework Convention on Climate Change (INC). Beginning in 1991. the INC hosted a series of negotiating sessions that culminated in the signing. S' more than 160 countries, lu-
ll ding.Jhe US, qf the Frame-. work Convention on Climate Change in Rio de Janeiro on May 471992. The objective of this Rio treaty was to:
'....achieve....stabilisation of the greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system." The signatories are required to voluntarily commit themselves to take steps to implement the objectives of the Conventions. These steps Include, national commitment to prepare and submit for review national action plans and periodic national emissions inventories.
The goal of the Kyoto Conference & to accelerate the pace of international action under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Most importantly. developed countries will for the first time adopt legally bindirig targets and timetables for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions.
It is understandable perhaps that the US. being the world's single largest emitter of carbon dioxide and halocarbons, is at the centre of what is likely to be a trading market at Kyoto, where hard bargaining will take place among the three primary negotiating parties. US. Europe and Japan, on acceptable mandatory limits on Sas emissions which necessar-y also put ceiling on economic growth.
Each of the three parties have major differences in the level of reduction that is deemed acceptable to them.
Japan has proposed a formula that effectively calls for most nations to cut emissions by 5 per cent from 1990 levels, while Europe is pressing for a 15 per cent reduction. The US has pro posed merely limiting emissions to 1990 levels. In addition. Japan has criticised a European proposal aimed at allowing different European na tions to achieve different reductions in emissions while committing Europe as a whole to a 15 per cent reduction. That proposal, which allows European nations with weaker economies to get by with sfrialle* ^eductions, and in some eases 4Mgher emissions; would make It difficult obtain the cooperation of developing nations in limiting their own emissions.
In fact, officials from developing nations attending an Asian Development Bank workshop in Manila on Friday. Nov 14. have said that developing countries In Asia are unwilling to accept proposals to cut emissions further than the targets that the Group of 77 and China (developing countries, including Bangladesh) are supporting which is 7.5 per cent by the year 2005 and 15 per cent by 2010. plus 35 per cent cuts by 2020.
"We (developing Asian countries) belong to the Group of 77 and China and the group has a strong position that no additional commitment should be introduced at the Kyoto conference," said Chueyprasit, deputy secretary-general of Thailand's Office of Environmental Policy and Planning.
Although the economic costs of the reduction is a matter for concern in the newly emerging Asian countries, much more so than in the industrialised West, the nations of Asia and Pacific do need to be concerned about the potential effect on the region from climate change related shifts in patterns of storms, floods, droughts as well as rise in sea level. A case in point are the Members of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS)
who, threatened by sea-level rise, want a 20 per cent rollback by 2005
The potential impact of climate change on Bangladesh would come from a definite trend toward Increasing rainfall. which would be disastrous to a country of such low elevation. The consequences would . be severe flooding. With a one metre rise in sea level, one-fifth of the nation s land and nearly 15 per cent of the population would be threatened oy inundation The Sundarbans, one of the world's richest mangrove forests, would disappear, lead-injg to majbr loss in WoTlvef-slfy. loss of a natural sink.for, gi»enh®use gases, and loss at piomasa which is a majorj energy source In the country The Impact on the economy, as assessed in the Country Report of an 8 nation study funded by
ADB, would cost Bangladesh an annual loss of 81 billion of GDP by 2010. 85 billion by 2070. Quite realistically however. Dr. Kazi F Jalal. ADB Chief of the office of the Environment says in the report s foreword that a challenge is devising a response to global concerns without hampering progress and growth in the Asian developing countries. who are understandably unwilling to sacrifice their economic goals for a problem largely caused elsewhere
The report stresses more efficient energy technologies, up-to-date transportation systems, sustainable techniques for forestry and land use, and other "no regrets' options that may advance development without contributing to a critical global problem. In pprticpjar relation to Bqng&lIesn. qur policy. K1S&-
must Wp id mind th» fit-cause of its low tnefgy useland predominantly) agricultural sources of greenhouse gases, emissions are less important than in many other participating countries at the Kyoto Con-
ference. and an interesting developing tradable rights in greenhouse gases can be constructively used.
As the countdown to the conference begins, and negotiating countries start grappling with pragmatic issues like identifying targets and timetables, agreeing on policies and measures. bargaining for trading emissions quotas, and gener ally weighing the political and economic pros and cons of every question, perhaps this woulo not be the inappropriate place to introduce a passage written before environmental issues became either a fashion or a bone of contention. It Is a quotation from the Indian Chief Seattle. in,a letter, not unironically. addressed to the American President Franklin Pierce:
Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth, befalls all of the sons of the earth.^Thia wqjtqpw. the e#ulh dote man bf-
longs to^PAirtW All tlflftipf' are tegnected like the blood that rates u» ail. Man did not weave the web of life, he Is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself."