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Isaac Kabongo from Ecological Christian Organization speaks on the cost of no action on climate change and the situation in Uganda.
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Mahlet Eyassu from Forum for Environment-Ethiopia speaks on what is needed on climate financing before the conclusion of the Durban UN Climate Talks in December 2011.
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Isaac Kabongo
Executive Director
Ecological Christian Organisation (ECO)
Uganda
The United Nations declared that 11.5m people currently need humanitarian assistance across East Africa and many more could join them. The BBC reported that millions in Somalia and across the Horn of Africa face dire food shortages due to the worst regional drought for decades. On Tell Me More today, Al-Jazeera English correspondent, Azad Essa, told host Michel Martin that "in a word, the situation is quite horrific." The Horn of Africa region is now full of environmental refugees who do not have real hope in this real world. Their hope could be in the climate talks in Panama City that represent the best and last chance to get climate change negotiations back on track and prepare for a legally binding agreement at COP17 in Durban, South Africa.
In Uganda, the impacts of climate change are continuing without serious interventions to help vulnerable communities to cope. The recent emergence of landslides in areas without such history is leaving communities isolated, their survival networks and social structures weakened. On March 2 2010 over 358 people were killed by landslides at Nametsi Village, Bududa district, in Eastern Uganda. Landslides killed more 50 people in Bulambuli district, towards the end of August 2011 in Eastern Uganda. This is a region hit by drought, with many requiring food aid following the lack of April-May rain, these torrential rains, flooding and landslides are crippling the ability of communities to overcome poverty. Climate change impacts are making it even worse for communities to meet their needs and the government of Uganda to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), reduce poverty, and enhance human development. For us in Uganda, the parties attending the climate change talks in Panama City should come up with a text on long-term finance, which should be easily accessed by vulnerable Countries like Uganda.
Environmental protection is necessary to prevent climate change disasters in many countries from getting worse. In Panama City, measures must be taken to accommodate the needs of environmental refugees through expanding finance, technology, and capacity building commitments to developing countries. There is also need by parties to strengthen counting rules and methodologies to eliminate loopholes and explore innovative approaches to close the mitigation gap. Developed countries, therefore, should increase the ambition of their mitigation commitments unconditionally because of their historical responsibility. The Kyoto Protocol should be extended to the second commit period and attempts should be made to desist from failing to reach a legally binding climate change regime in Durban, South Africa, in December at the final UN Climate Talks of 2011. It is also important to note that the cost of inaction in clear and the future of the next generation is at a crossroad.
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Photo Credit: Manjeet Dhakal
Mahlet Eyassu
Climate Change Program Manager
Forum for Environment
Ethiopia
We are now in Panama, for the intersessional which is the last meeting before the Conference of the Parties (COP) in Durban. The 17th COP will be in Durban, South Africa, which make this a very important COP for Africa. Africa along with Least Developed Countries and the Small Island States are the most vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change. Even though Ethiopia is one of the least developed countries that is showing a rapid economic growth, it is still being affected by drought.
At the moment the Horn of Africa, including Ethiopia, is confronted with recurring climate change related disasters, in particular prolonged droughts and floods. This drought is said to be the worst in 60 years. Drought is not something new for Ethiopia nor the Horn. However, it has become more recurrent and severe in the last decades. Climate change is making the matters and problems worse for us who are under-developed.
In order to address the impacts of climate change, countries are negotiating under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In its 15th and 16th meetings an agreement was reached that developed countries will be supporting adaptation and mitigation actions of developing countries. We are now approaching the end of 2011, where the fast start finance of $30 billion for the years 2010-2012 is about to end. The other decision we have is the one on long-term finance to mobilize $100 billion by 2020. So far there are no pledges from the developed countries for the year 2013 and onwards. That is a worry for us coming from the developing world. We have learned some lessons from the fast start finance, which is not new and not additional to the ODA, but is just relabeled as climate finance, given in the form of loans instead of grants. There is an imbalance between adaptation and mitigation with more money going to mitigation actions instead of adaptation.
Forty member countries of the transitional committee are designing the Green Climate Fund (GCF) of whose works will be presented in Durban to be approved by the Conference of Parties (COP). However, most developed countries do not want to have any form of discussion on long-term finance which is supposed to fill this fund. With all of these climate related disasters happening in most parts of the world, especially developing countries being the most vulnerable and having no capacity to adapt, adaptation finance is very crucial for us. It is a matter of survival and should be taken seriously by others. Developed countries need to get more serious and commit themselves to discuss the sources of finance that will feed into the new fund. If we want an outcome in Durban, most discussions and texts need to happen here in Panama.
It is good to note that, developing countries at the local and national level are also working to raise funds for their adaptation and mitigation actions. In my organization back home, Forum for Environment-Ethiopia, we have started an initiative to raise funds, which can be used for some local adaptation actions. We have started implementing the green tax initiative in which 1% of our salaries are deducted every month. We have done this for the past year and have raised small amount, which has not been used yet. Now we want this to be taken up by other organizations at the country-level to show our commitments by raising more money and taking local initiatives. We have started the process of engaging others to hopefully have a larger impact. Progress in Panama in all issues, especially finance, is very important for us to achieve something in the African COP in Durban.
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Two organizations highlighted at a mid-week press conference that focusing on the health effects of climate change puts a human face on the negotiations.
Josh Karliner (Health Care Without Harm) and Genon Jensen (Health and Environment Alliance) presented Dr. Roberto Bertollini of the World Health Organization with a larger than life "Prescription for a Healthy Planet" endorsed by dozens of major international health organizations. Among those supporting the diagnosis of a planet increasingly presenting the symptoms of a sick climate are the International Council of Nurses, representing nursing associations in 128 countries, the World Federation of Public Health Associations, and the Standing Committee of European Doctors, which brings together 27 national medical associations in countries. When filled, the prescription will help negotiators strike a deal for a strong and legally binding agreement in Copenhagen.
Public health professionals are focusing on how extreme weather events such as heat waves and floods affect their patients and their work in poor and rich countries alike. Earlier this year, the Global Humanitarian Forum noted that increasingly severe heat waves, floods, storms and forest fires could push the annual death toll to 500,000 by 2030. Research in Europe shows that heat waves increase death rates, especially among older people and those with breathing problems.
In contrast, reducing carbon emissions will bring positive health returns. For example, said Dr. Bertollini, “choosing policies that reduce carbon emissions bring positive returns for public health. For example, developing sustainable public transport policies which encourage walking and cycling, and eating less red meat, can help mitigate climate change and also improve health."
The European Commission has estimated that a 20% reduction in carbon emissions from 1990 levels by 2020 could lead to savings on national health bills of up to EURO 51 billion in the EU alone. Research supported by CAN-Europe, the Health and Environment Alliance and WWF shows that savings would be increased to EURO 76 billion with a 30% reduction.
The Prescription for a Healthy Planet diagnoses the planet's problem as overconsumption of fossil fuels leading to global climate destabilization. It calls on global leaders to protect public health, move to clean energy, reduce emissions and provide finance for global action.
In Europe, HEAL and HCWH are calling for a 40% reduction target and for the EU to contribute at least EURO 35 billion per year to fund global action on climate change, of which a proportion should be allocated to the health sector.
These groups have urged negotiators to strengthen the health dimension in the current text. They will also lead a health delegation to Copenhagen where leading doctors, nurses, public health experts and a group of trainee doctors will be spreading the word in the halls and on the streets.
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ECO would like an answer to this question: What would you do if your country, lands and the livelihoods of your people were going to become unliveable or disappear under water or sand or face substantial damages beyond their capacity to adapt?
Adaptation negotiators entering the halls for the next informal session on adaptation ought to keep this concern clearly in mind, for it is the very real question faced by many of the world’s poorest countries. And the worry is growing. Recent Hadley Centre research shows that business-as-usual on our globe puts us on a pathway to a 4 to 6o C temperature increase by 2060 – and hotter in many places. Even current emission reductions targets, as analysed by Project Catalyst, point to a world of 3o and above.
Some Parties, mindful of this reality, are suggesting an international mechanism to address the unavoidable loss and damage from the adverse effects of climate change. They propose using insurance and compensation where adaptation is no longer possible.
But an informal survey of the scene reveals that the big, dirty, polluting, developed countries have very little interest in making progress on the issue. For example, Canada earned a Fossil of the Day with its suggestion to take loss and damage from unavoidable impacts off the list of adaptation objectives.
But deflecting this problem means that millions of extremely vulnerable people, for whom adaptation is less or no longer an option, would be left behind in a Copenhagen deal and face a grim future. ECO finds this unacceptable, dear reader, and so should you. There is still time for Canada, and for that matter the other developed countries that are currently hesitating to address this key issue, to broaden their view.
The first step is easy, and it would be difficult to find a justifiable reason not to take it: add a preambular paragraph that recognises that the problem exists, and firmly resolve to act on the issue by listing it in para 3, objectives.
The next step is equally clear and logical: agree a work programme to develop elements to assess and address loss and damage from unavoidable impacts.
For the last but most critical step, the foundations already exist in section D of the adaptation non-paper: a mechanism under the Copenhagen agreement to support vulnerable developing countries to build resilience and minimise loss and damage from unavoidable impacts, and to recover and rehabilitate livelihoods lost or damaged.
Some say it's all too difficult. But that's a matter of priorities. Could you sleep at night if your neighbor's lands and livelihood became untenable because you did nothing?
