From iGovernment Bureau, India November 16, 2007
New Delhi: The greenhouse gas emissions had risen 70 per cent in the last three decades, despite the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, and were expected to double or triple by the end of the century, regardless of efforts to stem them.
Speaking at the Second Committee ‘Economic and Financial’, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Vice Chairman Mohan Munasinghe said the climate change crisis would not be solved unless a wide range of government agencies devised policies and took action to reduce carbon dioxide and other emissions.
Munasinghe, also Chairman of the Munasinghe Institute for Development, said that the resulting 3°C rise in global temperature would potentially cause large-scale harm to global health, agriculture, forests, water resources, coastal areas and habitats.
Carbon dioxide levels, which had stood at the safe baseline of 275 parts per million for 10,000 years, were today approaching 400 parts per million, having caused global temperatures to increase by 0.6°C in the last few years, sea levels to rise several centimetres, dry areas to become even drier and wet areas to get still wetter, according to a Ministry of Environment release.
Stressing to limit greenhouse gas emissions and temperature rise to 2°C, he suggested it would be crucial to adjust trade, monetary, fiscal and taxation policies so that they addressed climate change without threatening the development process.
Munasinghe also said he favoured “sustainomics” which involved everything from turning off the lights when one left the room to developing more sustainable agriculture techniques for farmers.
It was an activist approach that employed social, environmental, economic and institutional tools and indicators—from data gathering to practical policy implementation—tailored to country-specific needs and circumstances, he said adding that the adaptation burden—adjusting activities to reduce vulnerability to climate change—would fall on the world’s poorest people and on the countries least responsible for climate change but most vulnerable to its impact.
Hundreds of millions of people would be affected by rising sea levels, particularly in small island developing states and low-lying coastal areas. If nations increased their coastal protection expenditures at the same rate of gross domestic product, the number of people affected would drop to tens of millions of people.
France’s national sustainable development strategy, based on the European Union strategy adopted in 2006, focused on climate change and clean energy, sustainable transport, sustainable consumption and production and the conservation and management of natural resources.
It also aimed to step up efforts to address public health, social inclusion, demography and migration, and global poverty and sustainable development, reports France’s Ministry of Ecology and Sustainable Development .
The strategy was in line with the definition of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs of a national sustainable development strategy.
The UN strategy definition said that a coordinated, participatory and iterative process of thoughts and actions to achieve economic, environmental and social objectives in a balanced and integrated manner at the national and local levels.
The UN stressed that countries must develop strategies linked to reducing poverty and to the other Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Experts believe that greater attention should also be paid to strengthening the capacity to mitigate and adapt at the societal and household levels, rather than simply at the sectoral level.
Failing to solve the livelihood issues of the poor made it impossible to achieve environmental sustainability, leaving poor households capable of destroying ecosystems in their pursuit of survival.
Special Adviser to the President of the Seychelles Rolph Payet said that progress required political attention to a national sustainable development strategy which would also be necessary to mobilize public opinion and involve the private sector and grassroots organizations in decision-making.
Payet said that efficient structures were needed to mobilize the public on sustainable development efforts. According to him, extreme events like tsunamis and other natural disasters could be seen as policy windows or opportunities to study how existing systems worked and how they could be modified accordingly.
Further to increase awareness among students, issues of climate change and sustainable development must be integrated into the national education curriculum.
Recognising that the challenge for developing countries was to open up new development paths, which would require tremendous effort as well as technological innovation, the conference called upon developed nations to share their technology and expertise.
—iGovernment Bureau
