Developed and developing countries alike, and more particularly Bangladesh and other smaller deltaic and coastal nations, are now being hit by more frequent and severe flooding as climate is changing because of global warming. A 100-year flood cycle is now reduced to a 20-year event with increasing adverse impacts and longer duration of inundations while a 20-year flood is visiting now in every 6-7 years. And Bangladesh is a glaring example.
It was cited at the fourth session of the Ad-hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Developed Country Parties under the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC AWG 4) and the fourth workshop under the "Dialogue on long-term cooperative action to address climate change by enhancing implementation of the Convention" (Convention Dialogue) held in Vienna, Austria from August 27-31, 2007.
Ian Noble of The World Bank made a notable presentation to put forward his arguments and called for both mitigation by drastically cutting greenhouse gas emissions and adaptation to the adverse impacts of climate-induced incidents across the globe especially in the least developed and small island countries.
Ian also warned that Bangladesh and fellow least developed countries might fail in achieving UN Millennium Development Goals because of the impending threats of climate change.
His voice was also echoed at the opening plenary and other sessions during the whole week in Austria Convention Centre at Vienna. At the inaugural session, Josef Pr'll, Minister for Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management, Austria, also cited Bangladesh as a classic case of how devastating would be the adverse impacts of near future climatic events.
Austrian host minister Josef emphasized that climate change is already a "harsh reality" and indicated that the EU is prepared to reduce emissions by 30 per cent by 2020 provided that other industrialized countries take commitments and that economically advanced developing countries contribute adequately.
Maria Madalena Brito Neves, Minister of Agriculture and Environment, Cape Verde, emphasized small island developing states' vulnerability to climate change, outlined adaptation and mitigation activities in Cape Verde and underscored the need for international cooperation in aid to those impacted countries.
Monyane Moleleki, Minister of Natural Resources, Lesotho, emphasized the need to begin post-2012 negotiations in Bali and indicated that while African and Asian countries need support, they also have responsibilities concerning climate change.
Yvo de Boer, UNFCCC Executive Secretary, also referred Bangladesh and other least developed and small island countries as victims and called for global funding mechanisms to rescue those nations from the claws of climate threats.
The UNFCCC Executive Secretary highlighted recent and upcoming meetings within and outside the UNFCCC, showing that momentum is building for COP 13 in December. He urged delegates to "seize this opportunity" to have focused discussions on a post-2012 regime in Vienna.
But, unfortunately Bangladesh was not represented at the AWG 4, which not only cited Bangladesh case but also shaped at length negotiations leading to Bali COP 13. G-77 chair and LDC delegates were looking for Bangladesh delegation to help firm up the group positions in a tight rope negotiation with skeleton delegations.
On the sideline of the AWG4, UNFCCC Secretariat and The World Bank in collaboration with COM+ organised a media training workshop to help disseminate climate change information across the globe more effectively and acurately, with the participation of Reuters, AP, AFP, BBC and other global media giants as well as developing country participants, which effort will continue in Bali to mainstream climate in the national planning and budget-making and development agenda.
The fourth meeting of Adhoc Working Group on Climate Change and Convention Dialogue workshop focused at length on finance issues and their relation to an appropriate and effective international response to climate change. Participants heard presentations on a report by the UNFCCC Secretariat on investment and financial flows, followed by questions and a panel discussion. The workshop exchanged views among panel members, government representatives and civil society.
UNFCCC Executive Secretary de Boer underscored the broad consultative process underlying the Secretariat's report and said its main findings concerned financial and investment flows needed in 2030 to meet worldwide mitigation and adaptation requirements. For mitigation, he identified the need for an additional USD 200-210 billion in 2030 and said that the estimated figures for adaptation amounted to several tens of billions of USD.
The UNFCCC ES explained that mitigation in developing countries is less expensive and that the carbon market would have the potential to deliver more emission reductions and investment flows, but the demand depends on the emission reduction ambitions of industrialized countries.
On the main constraints on mobilising new capital investment, Richard Samans, World Economic Forum, proposed that finance and economic ministries would have to work through such issues with the parties. He described the extraordinary potential of the carbon market while cautioning that uncertainty can be a fatal impediment, and described the critical role of domestic regulatory environments for investment. On opportunities for the UNFCCC to address financing gaps, Samans highlighted: the development of soft or policy commitments for non-Annex I countries; public-private and multilateral approaches to research and development (R&D); and the role of the multilateral development banks. He cited the role of grants, concessional lending and risk mitigating guarantees in stimulating early private sector investment.
The EU delegate stressed that as mitigation can provide net benefits, including in the power sector, the challenge is not so much technical or economic but political and institutional. He emphasized the role of the carbon market and said deeper commitments from developed countries are required to deliver its potential. Responding to the EU, Haites explained that enlarging the carbon market could be one possibility to address adaptation. He specified that if a share of proceeds from the CDM will be channeled to adaptation funding also in the future, more resources for adaptation could be mobilized. NORWAY stressed the importance of setting the emissions cap at the right level for the carbon market and that investors internalize the carbon price. SWITZERLAND emphasized the importance of a global carbon price and called for R&D support. GERMANY indicated that enabling conditions were needed as well as long-term market predictability, and suggested a flexible mechanism for sectoral carbon crediting.
The Argentine delegate said that since more than 50% of the mitigation potential was identified in non-Annex I countries, financial flows should be directed there. UGANDA warned against giving an impression that the carbon market would "fix both adaptation and mitigation" and stressed that experiences with the CDM demonstrate that this will not be the case. Haites confirmed that policies in addition to markets are needed to ensure that adaptation and mitigation happen.
UNFCCC Executive Secretary de Boer indicated that the current CDM, designed to address emission reductions, can be difficult to apply in small markets; and suggested consideration of a clean growth instrument in a future regime. He also called attention to upcoming finance for development conferences and the annual review of the Millennium Development Goals.
Responding to questions from NORWAY, BARBADOS, the EU, SWITZERLAND and LIBYA, Haites explained that the Secretariat's report uses carbon capture and storage investment projections from the International Energy Agency (IEA) and agreed that a global carbon price would help in creating a global market for new technologies. He described the role of information and incentives in encouraging the uptake of low hanging fruit, and, based on data from the IEA, suggested that a reduction in emissions in 2030 back to 1990 rather than 2004 levels would incur more than proportional additional costs. Smith indicated that estimates of adaptation costs as a percentage of gross domestic product are available, and agreed on the importance of mainstreaming adaptation at various levels of planning, down to project level. He observed that cost benefit studies are easier for sea-level rise and temperature change than for projections of precipitation.
Importance of Bali meet
It is hoped that the Bangladesh delegation will compensate for the loss made by its unpardonable absence in Vienna and take part at New York this month with Chief Adviser Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed as the leader of the delegation and effective and meaningful presence of Bangladesh in Bali which will be so important for Dhaka to help shape and mount its climate change negotiation skills, efficiency and power for redefining its climate change strategy and adaptation and mitigation programmes to face the onslaught of catastrophes devastating its MDG targets, goals and GDPs in every couple of years.
Bangladesh should be wise, prudent and farsighted to rise to the occasion. Adviser for Environment Dr C S Karim master all his endowments to draw the Bangladesh map at Bali for the survival of 140 million Bangladeshis in the face of flood cycles that are hitting every 6-7 years with an ever-increasing intensity; droughts are now more frequent and other abrupt weather phenomena are becoming so regular.
