November 13, 2011

Talking points of the speech presented at the Climate Vulnerable Forum 2011 in Dhaka, Bangladesh during the Inauguration of the Preparatory Meeting By Ross Mountain, Director General of DARA

Ross Mountain during the Inauguration of the Preparatory Meeting of the Climate Vulnerable Forum 2011

Challenges

1. Climate impacts are severe and harm development:

• DARA launched the Monitor at the behest of first CVF chair to examine the scale of impacts.
• We see serious problems with many countries facing adverse effects for human health, important infrastructure damage, desertification, sea-level rise, effects for crop yields, fisheries in the tropics and damage to natural resources like water.
• Countries we found to be Severe or Acute, are generally suffering heavily from a range of such effects.
• The effects are important globally – such as the 350,000 lives lost per year mainly among children suffering from otherwise preventable diseases, and over 60 billion dollars in economic losses – for developing countries.
• The effects are most acute in highly vulnerable countries – for instance, sea-level rise costs to the Pacific are estimated at nearly 3% of GDP.
• All the effects are escalating rapidly: for instance, 350,000 deaths will become nearly 1 million deaths by 2030 without proper action on adaptation.

2. Fossil fuel dependency is also taking its toll:

• Fossil fuel dependency is also a major problem, sometimes with greater effects than the actual consequences of climate change.
• Urban and indoor pollution, for instance, kills close to 3 million people each year, mainly in developing countries.
• Agriculture is also affected by local pollution, due to the poisonous effect of ozone for plant growth, and the dimming effect of atmospheric pollution clouds for crop yield – losses also estimated (by UNEP) in the tens of billions of dollars each year.
• Some pollutants prevalent in the lowest-income countries, like black carbon, also accelerate snow and glacier melt since they fall on snow and absorb more heat – this can worsen climate-related effects on spring flooding and summer drought.
• Fossil fuel scarcity, inflation and price volatility is also a major concern for all vulnerable countries; market-forced hikes in gas pump prices do lead to riots; government pricing of fossil fuels through taxes or subsidy rates, is a weekly policy concern in many countries, but very difficult to regulate; small island states see a significant reduction in virtually all economic activity when the price of oil hits a certain level; and UN OCHA, when monitoring on a monthly or weekly basis the evolution of the Global Food crises, closely examines the price of oil, which can have a dramatic impact on food prices (due to fertilizer and logistics) with predictable humanitarian impacts.
• Because of these factors, green development is actually clearly most attractive for vulnerable countries, since the variety of co-benefits involved is extraordinary.

3. Funding, Capacity and Technology inhibit responses:

• Finance in vulnerable countries is scarce for expensive adaptation projects and climate finance has not been forthcoming as committed; on DARA’s analysis, 2 years into a 3 year funding phase, less than half of the total has been firmly committed (the outstanding 15.5 out of 30 billion are just pledges); less than ten percent, or only about 2.5 billion has been spent; only 9% is actually additional/new; annual average dispersal rates of 5% compare to 80% dispersal under ODA; and only 21% of pledged funds have been allocated to adaptation – not quite a balance; simply put, there are currently next to no resources available for adaptation right now and as a result, there is a human toll that is mounting; while more resources (67% including REDD) have been pledged to mitigation in developing countries, there is still a large-scale gap in money spent versus Fast Start commitments.
• There is a chronic capacity issue to access the more than 20 different funds available, to design “saleable” mitigation projects able to attract private funds, to manage complex risk and vulnerability analysis for adjusting development planning, such as new infrastructure placement or urban planning, or to manage sector-specific diversification initiatives to make up for growing agricultural sector damages for instance.
• Technology development tends to be at the forefront in the wealthiest and largest economies in the world; vulnerable country governments has highly restricted access that technology, even when certain technologies could clearly help to save lives, such as improved or hybrid crop varieties for example.

4. Lack of international commitments:

• America, Russia, Japan and Canada are not behind Kyoto – but there is no alternative to move to.
• Major emitter policies are in any case not sufficient to limit temperature increases below the most dangerous levels (3 degrees Celsius and above).
• Lack of clarity on the future of the global climate regime is damaging business confidence in the low-carbon sector, and volumes under the Clean Development Mechanism, down by some 50% since 2006.

Opportunities

1. Integrate adaptation with risk reduction and other relevant policy areas:

• As an example, the Maldives capital of Male’s sea-wall, which was built to protect against sea-level rise and coastal erosion, actually ended up saving much of Male’ when the Indian Ocean Tsunami struck; co-benefits between adaptation to climate change and DRR, poverty reduction and a range of other areas can be highly valuable.

2. Millennium Development Goals:

• Climate impacts appear to be surgically targeting the MDGs, in particular if you look at the goals and regions lagging the most on the MDGs – such as extreme poverty and hunger (goal 1) and child mortality (goal 4) – and Africa, South Asia and small island states for the region’s making the least progress; these are all also headline affected areas as a result of climate change. Effectively adapting to climate change will therefore boost our ability to meet the MDGs by 2015.

3. Dual focus mitigation-adaptation projects:

• Very interesting for vulnerable countries are a range of projects that involve clean and renewable energy or carbon sinks, but also have significant benefits for adaptive capacity. Examples include energy-efficient cooking stoves which improve maternal and child health and help fight deforestation; or for instance, carbon sequestration in agricultural contexts, which has proven to boost soil fertility and integrity, boosting crop yields and enhancing the capacity of crops to withstand growing heat and water stresses. By focusing mitigation actions on projects with dual-benefits, vulnerable countries have an opportunity to enhance the dividends associated with climate finance and green growth investments.

4. Clean Development Mechanism (CDM):

• It is possible that China may begin a phased withdrawl from the CDM at around 2015 since it will have to begin domesticating emission reductions in order to meet its national targets; given that China represents half of the volume of the CDM, filling this space should provide an opportunity for vulnerable countries to seriously increase participation in the CDM; half of all CDM projects are also deemed to involved a technology transfer, so ensuring greater participation in the CDM is also an opportunity to benefit from enhanced transfer of green technologies. Vulnerable countries will need more targeted private and public sector capacity building and technical assistance in order to be able to better engage in the CDM.

See the latest updates from the Climate Vulnerable Forum 2011 in Dhaka