Submitted by MBrockley on
Wanun Permpibul from the Renewable Energy Institute of Thailand Foundation speaks about the catastrophic flooding in Thailand. She addresses what is needed in Panamá at the climate negotiations in order to make progress in Durban, at the annual COP, to help locally with adaptation to climate change in Thailand.
Submitted by MBrockley on
Photo 1 - Photo credit: Forests and Farmers Foundation, 2011
Photos 2-4 - Photo credit: HBS Southeast Regional Office, 2011
Wanun Permpibul
Head, Energy and Climate Change Programme
Renewable Energy Institute of Thailand Foundation
Thailand
Climate change is already a threat. Extreme and unprecedented climatic events are affecting poor communities already and they have little capacity to adapt. They have already been affected by economic and social injustice as well as other difficulties and climate change is adding another burden to their existing problems. Adaptive capacity needs to be strengthened while longterm adaptation is necessary and must be enhanced.
A few months before the Panama Climate Talks, provinces in the lower Northern Region of Thailand, particularly Pitsanulok Province, were hit severely by floods. Paddy fields, orchards, houses were flooded and destroyed. People died and went missing. Flood levels even rose up to their roofs. Most of the houses were submerged. Boats were floating up to the first floor of the house while residents had to stay on the second floor. Some had to leave their houses temporarily. Some villagers were bitten by poisonous snakes and scorpions, others were faced with infections on their feet, and other disease. Not only are their houses and paddy fields inundated, but other resources that could be sources of income are also damaged.
As a matter of fact, villages here are flooded every year during the wet season, but the current floods are extraordinary in the sense that rainfall came two months earlier this year in a very heavy and lasting pattern before the rice could be harvested. This is the second time for Bang Rakam Subdistrict that the rains have come earlier, the last time was in 2000 and in 1995 for the Jom Thong Subdistrict. During the floods, villagers could not harvest, and thus were unable to earn any income. Communities were not warned and informed well in advance enough of the floods and were not able to prepare for it. Floods have lasted for longer periods of time. Previously, they lasted for two months, but now it has been almost three months. The government was trying to solve the floods problem using a traditional top down approach: they flushed out the water from the areas, but then found this created a flooding problem in another area.
Rather than waiting for humanitarian aid and the government’s help, communities implemented their own responses to the floods and have been adjusting themselves to the climatic changes. These are their homes for generations and they do not want to leave. Some couldn’t afford to move elsewhere. Their responses include changing the crop calendar by starting to grow rice months earlier than usual. They will have to observe natural signs using their local knowledge to predict the climate pattern each year in order to prevent massive loss to crops. Some have initiated a rice bank to store traditional rice varieties that are pest and flood tolerant with longer stalks that will not be damaged by floods. Some have tried to grow different rice varieties in higher land or even in orchard fields. Some have prepared for food insecurity by recovering endangered food species that are floods resistant. Also, the pattern of housing architecture has been changed. Many villagers have lifted their houses higher from the ground to free the flow of water. Some even have boats to ease their travelling. They also have learned to store some food and drinking water, and other necessities.
Additionally, they have built their own reservoirs to store water for farm use and nurturing some fish species. They have looked for alternatives for income generation like catching fish and snakes, during floods. Some have initiated a communication system to ease information flow during the floods among those located up-, middle- and down-stream river. The system could also help mobilize immediate needs and supports among each other. This should be further developed to enhance preparedness and prevent massive losses longterm. Apart from the immediate responses, communities have been engaged in a planning process for longterm adaptation to future impacts of climatic change. Initially, they came up with an idea of constructing an improved flood protection, but it would require significant funds and take lots of time. Also, more research on flood tolerant species is needed. All these elements for longterm adaptation require funds and external supports.
The Panama Talks are, therefore, important. The delay in taking ambitious reduction targets would mean more severe and frequent extreme climatic events and poor communities will be hit the most. As Pitsanulok, Thailand and others are faced now with the impacts, longterm adaptation is really needed. We need to massively scale-up support for adaptation actions to cover full implementation of National Adaptation Action Strategies and Plans, from immediate to longterm actions, that will deliver regular flows of financial and other support for adaptation planning, implementation and monitoring. These should be in the form of predictable periodic grant installments and help is needed to facilitate, enable and support generation, gathering and dissemination of data, knowledge and experiences, including traditional knowledge on adaptation planning and practices. Building upon what was agreed in Cancun – the Cancun Adaptation Framework – the creation of an Adaptation Committee under the UNFCCC will have to provide an oversight of streams of adaptation work, where the Committee should comprise members of civil society and experts in each necessary field. This will have to be achieved in Panama so that it can be finalized in Durban in December.
Communities are faced with hardship and are simply attempting to survive. They might or might not know that the disasters and unpredictable patterns of rainfalls are as a result of climate change or anthropogenic emissions, but changes are happening and affecting their livelihoods and most of all, they need to live with these. Those in Panama are well equipped with all the science, they need to make more progress. Community voices must be heard.
Submitted by MBrockley on
Wanun Permpibul
Head, Energy and Climate Change Programme
Renewable Energy Institute of Thailand Foundation
Thailand
I have been doing research with the Sustainability Watch Thailand, a local think tank focusing on the promotion of alternative and renewable sources of energy, and enhancement of action research on community based vulnerability assessment and adaptation aiming at influencing climate policy in Thailand.
Power and transport are the two largest sectors contributing to increasing GHGs in Thailand. High potential sources of alternative and renewable energy are available but they need clear policy framework and supports to utilise these resources effectively. In these areas we have been working through the Power Development Plan, which is the plan directing power generation for Thailand. Together with other civil society organisations, we have prepared the alternative plan where renewable sources of energy as well as energy efficiency and savings are the focus, which also reflect the potentials for Thailand’s mitigation measure on this sector. Additionally, the role and performance in ensuring good governance and promoting renewable sources of energy in the power sector is also investigated and recommendations will be proposed to the government.
With regards to climate impacts, vulnerability and adaptation, we have attempted to combine scientific modeling and forecasts with local observations in order to engage people’s participation in addressing impacts, assessing vulnerability and sectors of vulnerability, and identifying areas where adaptive capacity needs to be strengthened or provided that could lead to long term adaptation. We have applied the livelihood vulnerability index and participatory techniques with communities. Through this, we hope to integrate climate change and adaptation into the local plan and subsequently national policy.
Participating in the climate negotiations would enable and broaden my understanding on the link of climate, both mitigation and adaptation, and sustainable development issues. I do appreciate the South Capacity Building programme of CAN International, enabling me to understand better on the negotiation process, overall picture of climate politics and deepened my knowledge on the adaptation. This would strengthen my capacity to better communicate with the Thai government to get a clear national position towards climate negotiations. Furthermore, the SCB programme has enabled me to better understand how NGOs as a network work effectively and in a powerful manner to influence climate politics, which I could apply to the network in the country.
Submitted by Anonymous on
In his most recent State of the Union address, President Obama introduced the idea of “winning the future” to the American public. ECO welcomes this race, and humbly suggests a focus on climate policies could help him achieve this seemingly paradoxical goal. To win the race, the U.S. will need to actually join it. A recent Pew and Bloomberg New Energy Finance report shows that the U.S. has slipped down to number three in private investment in clean energy development, such as small-scale solar installations, launching Germany into the number two spot. Until 2008, the U.S. had held the top spot, a spot now firmly held by China. Globally, 2010 clean energy finance and investments grew by 30 percent to a record $243 billion.
Why is the U.S. competitive position ‘deteriorating’, ECO wonders?
The report concludes that climate policies matter to investors. Pew’s Clean Energy Program Director attributed the decline in investments in the U.S. to a ‘weak and uncertain’ policy framework. China, Germany and India are rising in investment rankings because they have adopted policies such as renewable energy standards, carbon reduction targets and/or incentives for investment and production.
In the race to win the future, the US seems to be running with its shoes untied.
The report – Who’s Winning the Clean Energy Race? 2010 edition – is the second annual compilation of clean energy investments (which includes renewables and energy efficiency). Last year’s reportmade big waves in the U.S. when it announced that China had taken over the lead.Now the gap has widened and the US is falling even lower down the rankings.
ECO has to wonder when U.S. elected officials will wake up to that fact that the real ‘job killer’ is not carbon regulation. It is the failure to join the rest of the world in the race to the new energy future
Submitted by Anonymous on
Bioenergy had a starring role in this week’s workshop on developed country emission reduction targets. The theme of many parties was reducing energy sector emissions by substituting bioenergy for fossil fuels.
At last, Mexico sounded a note of caution in their presentation in the workshop on NAMAs, pointing out that reliance on biofuels is difficult to do sustainably, can be harmful in terms of conservation and REDD targets, and can impact on agriculture
Bioenergy - a clean alternative?
Bioenergy leaves a carbon footprint which is largely ignored when proposed as an alternative. This is an unacceptable situation as we face exponential growth in this energy source which is being justified in the name of addressing climate change.
The worry arising from tremendous expansion of bioenergy production from land and forests is not just the unintended consequences of constraining food supply and the potential to destroy biodiversity, as important as those are. There are also problems arising directly from the failure to address deficiencies of accounting rules in the KP.
ECO is compelled to point out that although the use of bioenergy is often claimed to be carbon neutral, this is rarely so. The emissions released from producing and burning bioenergy can be much larger than those for fossil fuels, especially when converted to liquid fuels or where grown on emissive peat soils, as shown in the chart.
Developed countries:
Actual emissions, fake accounting
Equally rare is accounting for the actual emissions. Yes, it’s that old problem – the LULUCF rules – once again!
Under existing IPCC guidance, bioenergy is accounted as carbon neutral when it is combusted in the energy sector, as it is a renewable energy source. But the crucial presumption underpinning this is that emissions associated with the provision of bioenergy have been accounted for in their sector of origin (i.e., the land use and forestry sector) in their country of origin and netted out against carbon sequestration in growing the bioenergy crop in the first place.
In developed countries this assumption founders on the failure of the LULUCF rules to mandate accounting for either forestry or cropland management. Currently, many parties choose not to do this. There isn’t even a proposal on the table that all parties must account for all LULUCF emissions including cropland management, in which case parties won’t include those activities in their reporting when they are emissive. In addition, the proposal for projected reference levels for forest management in the KP second commitment period opens a new kind of loophole, and this is a very concerning development also for accounting bioenergy emissions specifically.
Submitted by Anonymous on
Around noon today, 2,000 people from the Asian Peoples Solidarity for Climate Justice will march from Peace Park to the United Nations ESCAP building.
Their intention is to raise awareness within Thailand and globally of the need for a fair and safe agreement on climate change in Copenhagen.
They will be joined by the Urban Poor Coalition which is highlighting the impact of climate change on urban poor communities. ECO understands that a paper-mache world and an hourglass, representing time for action is slipping away, will accompany their powerful message.
They will arrive here around midday.
Here's some video from the march:
[Article published in Climate Action Network's Eco Newspaper, Oct. 5, 2009 from Bangkok, Thailand UNFCCC negotiations - full PDF version here]
