With day three of the COP upon us one of the salient themes that continued to color the negotiators opening statements and passionate pleas were descriptions of the devastating natural disasters and extreme events occurring in their home countries. From the Thailand floods where over 600 lives were lost to the ongoing famine in Somalia in which millions continue to face starvation and widespread displacement, these countries were quick to remind the world of the exacting toll that climate change has brought upon them. For many living in these vulnerable regions, climate change is not a distant threat, but a harsh reality and their negotiators were sure to remind the room of who’s paying the price.
These human and economic costs were further catalogued in the recently released IPCC report on extreme events (SREX) which highlighted changes in climatic conditions such as temperature and storm intensity and identified key factors shaping human vulnerability. Referencing the report this morning IPCC chair Rajendra Pachauri urged parties to let the voice of sound science and these escalating costs of inaction to guide the negotiations… a clear deviation from the politicking that often typifies the UNFCCC process.
So how exactly are countries responding to these increasing risks? Last year in Cancun Parties agreed to establish a work program to consider how best to reduce the severity of damages and losses associated with climate change impacts in vulnerable countries. Since the agreement both countries and civil society have provided submissions on options for risk management and reduction, risk sharing and transfer and the role of the Convention for addressing these issues. However, while there is an overwhelming consensus that implementing measures to guard against the adverse impacts is essential, Parties remain divided on the appropriate form to deliver that protection. With the first draft text on loss and damages now circulated, Parties need to build on the positive momentum for implementing these risk reducing measures and take the necessary steps to develop the international response to loss and damages into an actionable mechanism for COP 18. As negotiators jostle over the appropriate form for addressing loss and damages the key issues to tackle will be: how to assess risk, the possible range of approaches and the role of the convention will play in implementing agreed upon measures.
Decisions in Durban on loss and damages are only intended to set the framework for more concrete actions at COP 18; however a cursory glance at international headlines replete with devastation of fires, floods, and famine only further highlight the urgency for moving this important work forward.
1 comment
Jennifer Doherty
December 3, 2011 at 11:06 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
While the Earth has always endured natural climate change variability, we are now facing the possibility of irreversible climate change in the near future. The increase of greenhouse gases in the Earth?s atmosphere from industrial processes has enhanced the natural greenhouse effect. This in turn has accentuated the greenhouse ?trap? effect, causing greenhouse gases to form a blanket around the Earth, inhibiting the sun?s heat from leaving the outer atmosphere. This increase of greenhouse gases is causing an additional warming of the Earth?s surface and atmosphere. A direct consequence of this is sea-level rise expansion, which is primarily due to the thermal expansion of oceans (water expands when heated), inducing the melting of ice sheets as global surface temperature increases.
Forecasts for climate change by the 2,000 scientists on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) project a rise in the global average surface temperature by 1.4 to 5.8°C from 1990 to 2100. This will result in a global mean sea level rise by an average of 5 mm per year over the next 100 years. Consequently, human-induced climate change will have ?deleterious effects? on ecosystems, socio-economic systems and human welfare.At the moment, especially high risks associated with the rise of the oceans are having a particular impact on the two archipelagic states of Western Polynesia: Tuvalu and Kiribati. According to UN forecasts, they may be completely inundated by the rising waters of the Pacific by 2050.According to the vast majority of scientific investigations, warming waters and the melting of polar and high-elevation ice worldwide will steadily raise sea levels. This will likely drive people off islands first by spoiling the fresh groundwater, which will kill most land plants and leave no potable water for humans and their livestock. Low-lying island states like Kiribati, Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands and the Maldives are the most prominent nations threatened in this way.“The biggest challenge is to preserve their nationality without a territory,” said Bogumil Terminski from Geneva. The best solution is continue to recognize deterritorialized states as a normal states in public international law. The case of Kiribati and other small island states is a particularly clear call to action for more secure countries to respond to the situations facing these ‘most vulnerable nations’, as climate change increasingly impacts upon their lives.