Hope Persists? – by Nimer Ahmed
Denmark had hosted the 15th UN’s Climate Change Conference from 7th December till 18th December 2009. At Copenhagen 193 countries negotiated to strike a much-needed deal to save entire human civilization but failed to deliver the answers for climate change. In 2007 Conference in Bali, it was conceded by all members that currently, they are far behind in “stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system” -Kyoto protocols- and revised agreement is needed to answer grave climate problems.
According to World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report, besides having agreement to save climate, “concentration of green house gases continued to increase, even a bit faster”. Oksana Tarasova, a specialist working with WMO said in an interview, “Even if we stop all the emissions right now, after 100 years, 30 percent of the amount added to pre-industrial level will remain in the atmosphere”.
Recent global scientific synthesis are suggesting that climate changes are occurring at a faster pace than all previous forecasts and projections with artic ice melted 40% greater than expectation, Antarctic ice sheets are fast losing mass, sea level rising about 80% than projections made in 2001 and Carbon-dioxide emissions are 40% higher than 1990: and great climate scientist James Hansen is predicting that 2010 will be the warmest year ever recorded. With more droughts and floods, less ice and snow causing fresh water scarcity, more extreme weather conditions and rise in sea level in last decade, it was quite evident that climate was not waiting for success at Copenhagen.
Time is passing at a high pace and thousands of negotiators from all over the world and UN are trying to build a bridge between diametrically opposed economic interests to set up a legally binding treaty in 2010. While critics of this process are arguing that current process will end up nowhere because developed world is still more concerned about economic melt down than ice-caps, and are hesitant to provide needed funding to save climate without realizing the fact that they have to provide finances to developing world to save climate, or otherwise there will be no agreement.
On the other hand there is an optimistic approach toward current negotiations, UN secretary Ban Ki-moon has urged all nations, “to formally sign on to the Copenhagen accord by registering their support. The faster we have all the signatures, the more momentum we can give to current process.” Ban further added that he will encourage world leaders “to directly engage in achieving a global legally binding climate change treaty in 2010.”
Global Footprint Network, an international think tank, has recently issued a report about consumption pattern of our modern era. Report points out that “Humanity would need five Earths to produce the resources needed if everyone lived as profligately as Americans.” In 1961, the entire planet uses almost half of the earth bio-capacity but today, 80% countries uses more bio-capacity available within their boundaries. Current consumerism is not only causing food scarcity in developing world but also producing piles of wastage that is severely damaging climate, and thus caused threat to the survival of countries like Maldives, most vulnerable to climate change and Maldivian administration is exploring options to buy land from Srilanka, India or Australia to settle their population of about 300,000.
Highly venerable countries from climate change are quite rightly blaming industrialized countries for putting their survival at risk by toxication environment. But, unfortunately, major players are still not practically taking measures to cut down emissions of green house gases. In 2006 Canada unilaterally announced to ditch its target to cut green house gases under Kyoto Protocol. Canada took that decision to develop World second largest reserve of oil. Like Canada, other “so-called” peaceful country, Australia has failed to lower its annual per capita emissions, which is currently highest in world at almost 27 tones per person.
In Obama’s last tour of Asia, it was stated by many Asian leaders that it is hard to find a solution for climate change in Copenhagen and, as time passed it holds true, it is becoming more and more evident after Copenhagen that petty interest of both developing and developed nations will hinder the course for treaty at Mexico Conference in 2010. It is also equally depressing that industrialized countries are willing to cut emissions only by few percent, though their industrial development is the major cause of environmental damage, and demanding higher level of cooperation from developing countries.
Though billions of dollars are wasted in military campaigns to secure economic interests and vested interests are compelling to launch disinformation campaigns which are defying basic scientific laws but still there is a hope that after doing wonders in past, mankind is once again facing a critical challenge where petty interest of some classes are at stake and trillions of dollar funding is needed to save climate, collective consciousness will rectify misdeeds of Copenhagen at Mexico.
Environmental ‘strategic depth’
By Ardeshir Cowasjee
Sunday, 14 Feb, 2010
Can we stop trying to build Pakistan by breaking environmental laws? Asks Cowasjee.
Those who can comprehend the title, read on. A news item, ‘Pakistan most vulnerable to climate change’ (Dawn, Feb 5) probably escaped the attention of many. It told us: “It was bad news all around when environment experts on Thursday reiterated before the parliamentarians that Pakistan was the most vulnerable country to the impacts of climate change.
“In the first meeting of the Climate Change Sub-Committee of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Environment, the experts warned that melting rate of glaciers would increase in Pakistan’s mountain ranges such as Karakoram and Hindukush, resulting in flash floods. … ‘Crops will be affected resulting in lower productivity and production. Outbreak and spread of diseases, shifting in cropping patterns, soil erosion, salinity and water logging, increased trans-boundary movement of pests and disease are some of the serious challenges,’ said a participant.”
We in Pakistan are perhaps just beginning to comprehend that there exist phenomena called ‘climate change’ and ‘environment’. Nothing serious is being done by parliament, the environment ministry, the protection agencies, the industrial associations (who are among the worst polluters), or the urban municipal bodies, despite the World Bank’s 2006 assessment that Pakistan’s environmental degradation is equivalent to six per cent of GDP.
Some indicators of local significance accorded to these critical issues are: (a) the government’s task force on climate change has not met in two years; (b) President Asif Zardari, who led our UN delegation in September 2009, was too busy with personal matters to attend Ban Ki-Moon’s environment summit for 100 heads of countries and instead sent his then advisor on petroleum affairs Dr Asim Hussain; (c) at the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change in November 2009, almost every national delegation was led by a head of state or government, but again Asim Hussain was sent.
One observation must be repeated: to appreciate the intimate connection between Pakistan’s political/economic woes and climate change, “many of the tensions and conflicts that exist in Pakistan are related to environmental problems generated by ‘islands of prosperity’ in ‘oceans of poverty’.”
As is being increasingly perceived around the world, climate change, brought about by destruction of the environment and use of fossil fuels is no longer merely an economic or environmental issue.
Margaret Beckett, once the UK’s first woman foreign secretary, recently stated: “Anyone wanting to trace the links between what science is telling us about physical impacts and the broader ramifications for our security would do well to read a startling report…. The Military Advisory Board is a group of the most respected retired admirals and generals in the United States.
“…They are about as far as you can get from the old stereotype of a tree-hugging environmentalist. And yet in that report they state, categorically, that projected climate change poses a serious threat to America’s national security. It is, they say ‘a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world’. In other words, an unstable climate will make the very kinds of tensions and conflicts that the Security Council deals with, day in day-out, yet more frequent and even more severe.”
In a recent op-ed piece in the Times of India entitled ‘Charting Green Pathways’, Jamshyd Godrej, head of Godrej & Boyce, and chair of the Confederation of Indian Industry’s Climate Change Council had this to say: “No sooner had [the] environment minister … announced in parliament that India would cut its emission intensity by 20-25 per cent by 2020, there was a welter of protests. Would it not imperil the country’s rapid quest for accelerated development by imposing a huge additional burden? Emission intensity is the amount of carbon emitted in producing one unit of GDP.
“Soon after the parliamentary statement … our prime minister together with the leaders from Brazil, South Africa and China, or the BASIC countries, promised to pursue voluntary cuts in carbon emissions irrespective of the outcome in Copenhagen. He and the Indian delegation then worked with their counterparts from BASIC and with US President Barack Obama in framing the Copenhagen Accord.
“While inadequate … the Copenhagen Accord is a necessary and constructive platform that enables the global community to maintain momentum towards a final agreement. And our leaders deserve to be commended for showing admirable foresight and vision by pledging to progressively bring down our carbon emissions and for taking a constructive approach towards securing an international agreement as these actions will also serve India’s own best interests.
“Due to climate change, monsoons are threatened, agriculture productivity is on the wane, extreme weather events are on the rise, the Himalayan glaciers are melting, thereby imperiling our water security, our coastlines are eroding, and our forests and wildlife are endangered. And that’s not all. Climate change endangers our health and the well-being of our children.”
He explained that there are policies that have globally been proven to help win the energy-climate battle, and that India is focusing on energy efficient appliances and building codes; vehicle fuel-efficiency standards; demand-side management in the power sector; increasing supply of renewable energy; sustainable transportation.
It is in India’s national interest to do so, from both development and climate perspectives: “By putting greater political will at central, state and city levels and by promoting better coordination and deploying technical capacity behind these policies now and in the future, we cannot only meet, but possibly also exceed the goal of reducing our emissions intensity by 20-25 per cent that the minister has announced.”
Can we in Pakistan also simplify our lives, provide a better living standard to our poor, and stop trying to build Pakistan by breaking natural and environmental laws? This will help us develop environmental ‘strategic depth’.
arfc@cyber.net.pk
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/columnists/12-environmental-strategic-depth-420–bi-06
Environmental hazards
More than 100 industrial units in Karachi, accused of dumping an enormous amount of toxic effluent into surrounding waters, have been allowed to jump ship and sail free after a heavy bout of alleged political wrangling. The Sindh Environmental Protection Agency issued environmental protection orders (EPOs) to these units — as specified by the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act of 1997 — as warnings for them to get their act together and follow a systematic and organised method of waste disposal. However, when left unheeded, these warnings morphed into the imposition of fines and impending action. Unfortunately, despite all this, the errant industries have got away with it because the bane of Pakistan is our clinging onto the coattails of political connections.
The government, whether the present one or the ones before it, has never paid sufficient attention to the problem of environmental pollution. Allowing these industrial offenders off the hook without so much as a slap on the wrist is going to wreak havoc for generations to come. If the government is not willing to hold influential industry owners accountable for this criminal abuse of the environment, it ought to establish waste treatment plants and set-ups so that an effective method of pollutant disposal is introduced. Not only have we allowed gross oversights in the management of waste disposal, leading to a dizzying degree of pollution and poor health standards, we have never even considered the employment of research and solution analysis to this problem, a common affliction of developing countries such as ours. For this not only politicians, but the whole establishment ought to be held responsible as a definite lack of awareness exists in the sphere of pollution control. Karachi is not the only victim as every city or locality situated near a riverbed suffers from this deluge of effluent into our waters. Lahore does not possess a single waste treatment plant to cater to its industrial waste disposal requirements.
Initiatives such as developing hazardous waste treatment facilities for every city where industrial units pose a health and ecology hazard ought to be put on the drawing board if the anomaly of the polluters being let off due to political and bureaucratic affiliations is to be overcome.
http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\02\24\story_24-2-2010_pg3_1