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Climate change and the road to recovery

Muhammad Zamir
Our Jatiyo Sangshad Standing Committee on the Environment participated by representatives from all parties within our Parliament, need to carefully discuss future steps and move forward with a certain degree of consensus. We expect our politicians to desist from doing politics with such a serious issue.***
Iwas quite taken aback with a recent article on global warming by Professor Bjorn Lomborg, Director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center. Known as the 'Skeptical Environmentalist’, he has suggested that the world is 'unnecessarily frightened and is exaggerating estimates of sea level rise' and the possible 'harm' that might result from global warming. 1 must admit that I was surprised to see Mr. Lomborg's lack of concern with our environmental threats.
Climate change, contrary to Mr. Lomborg, is definitely one of the most pressing issues facing our global society as a whole. In fact, scientific data and evidence suggests that unless we alter our behavioral pattern drastically, we will have to deal with catastrophic consequences.
The effects of climate change are already apparent -- glaciers are disappearing, the polar ice caps are melting and our weather pattern is becoming not only unpredictable but more extreme. These changes in turn are having consequences, both social and economic. It is also clear that accelerating global warming will impact on food production and movement of populations internally and also across borders (seeking alternate livelihoods in the
absence of sufficient fresh water due to droughts or erosion of arable land arising out of floods).
The first scientific effort to focus on this problem about fifty-five years ago resulted in the setting up of the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii in 1958. This institution aimed at measuring atmospheric CO2 levels. Since then, Vie scientific process has moved on, thanks to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and its Ibuki satellite launched a few years ago. It is monitoring the density of CO2 and methane gas and checking gas levels in entire columns of atmosphere in 56.000 locations. This is permitting the satellite to discriminate carbon emissions from different countries.
Efforts in this regard would have advanced further had the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration's launch of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (capable of measuring CO2 entering and leaving the atmosphere close to ground level -- so that the major sources and sinks could be more closely specified) succeeded in February 2009. This was a major disappointment because it not only took eight years to develop this Mission but also set the world back with regard to its understanding of the effects of evolving climate change.
A few weeks ago, the UN International Strategy for Disaster
Reduction (UNISDR) published their Mortality Risk Index to coincide with a UN meeting of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, attended by nearly 2,000 officials and experts (on natural catastrophes). The meeting recognized that 'there literally are no countries in the world that are not potentially affected by hazards'. It was also agreed that Asian countries led by Bangladesh, India. Indonesia and China (with a collective population of over 2.6 billion) dominated the Index that estimates which populations are most at risk from earthquakes, floods, cyclones and landslides. After careful scrutiny, the Conference also felt that countries could reduce the impact of disasters.
It is this last premise that has encouraged our government to take this matter seriously. We have seen both our Prime Minister and our State Minister for Environment and Forest underlining the need for our relevant authorities to plan ahead in how to tackle environmental degradation and possible fallout from climate change. It has already been proposed in the current 2009-10 budget that Taka 7 billion will be set aside as part of the Multi-Donor Trust Fund to respond to the changes in the environment arising out of global warming and rising sea levels.
One needs to point out here the need for a bi-partisan effort in this regard within the political process. Our Jatiyo Sangshad Standing Committee on the Environment participated by representatives from all parties within our Parliament, need to carefully discuss future steps and move forward with a certain degree of consensus. We expect our politicians to desist from doing politics with such a serious issue.
The G-8 leadership now recognizes
the growing impact of global warming. The EU States have for some time understood the reality of the situation. The US Administration is also finally willing to play ball and appear to have mustered the necessary political will to rein in soaring greenhouse gas emissions. It is fortunate that this has happened ahead of the December 2009 global climate meeting to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The importance of this meeting with its unparalleled political opportunities for providing leadership and change is seen as crucial because of Nobel-Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) observation that 'emissions must be stabilized by 2015 and be in decline by 2020'. It is this felt need that has also underscored the requirement for agreeing on a powerful regulatory strategy and how such a legal regime can be applied aggressively.
US President Obama has called for an interim meeting in Italy (after the G-8 Summit), where the world's 15 biggest CO2 emitting countries -- including emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil -- can attempt to find common ground. This would be an important step ahead of the Copenhagen meeting in December this year and could contribute towards the hammering out of an accord to replace the Kyoto Protocol, whose main provisions expire in 2012.
Any one involved with the climate change dialogue knows that there has been little progress on the most important point -- the extent to which rich countries and emerging industrialized countries (like China and India) are willing to cut their emissions. Currently, we still have a lot of discord within the framework of ongoing discussions on climate change. China has called on
developed countries to cut their emissions by 40 per cent by 2020 -- far more than what they plan to do. China also wants the developed countries to give 0.5 per cent to 1.0 per cent of their GDP in assistance to the developing world.
Lack of clarity continues pertaining to the method and means by which poorer, developing nations like Bangladesh will be compensated in terms of money and technology for the greed of others. One hopes that the coming few months ahead of the Copenhagen meeting will address these factors. The participants need to arrive at a consensus not only on these unresolved areas but also be able to identify how additional assistance can be provided to developing nations in their efforts to increase renewable energy generation and in their improve-
ment of energy efficiency through the establishment of smart grids.
China and India have their own interpretations. They feel that they do not need to take the same significant actions that are being taken by other developed countries. Both China and India must however understand that both are part of the solution when it comes to overcoming the challenge of climate change. We are all in this together. Our entire biosphere is threatened by ourselves. Our planet is in peril despite what experts like Professor Lomborg might opine. We must act now for future human well being. We can no longer afford to agree to disagree.
Muhammad Zamir is a former Secretary and Ambassador and can be reached at mazamir@dhaka.net