17 December 2010
Clare Shakya looks at the impact of the UN climate change summit from her viewpoint in Delhi.
What does Cancun mean for my work as DFID’s regional climate change adviser in Asia?
Hmmm.
Progress at Cancun was difficult, the trust deficit between the different parties means everyone waits for the other to move. But there was progress – the emission cuts offered by countries under the Copenhagen Agreement are now recognised officially in the UN process.
The good news is that there were some creative solutions to the deadlock on the table – emerging economies will now also make a legal commitment to the agreement, a Green Fund will be managed under the UN process, and it was agreed that there should be support for forestry and support for countries to access clean technologies. Rich countries also reconfirmed their commitment to a $30 billion fund now to help poor countries adapt to the climate change effects they are already facing.
The bad news is progress on the emission reductions in the Cancun Agreement are not enough to put us on a path to 2°C. And whilst agreements at Cancun exceeded expectations, emissions are already near the top end of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) range. We cannot assume we will get on track for 2°C because that means limiting cumulative carbon emissions to one trillion tonnes. And to achieve that – while facilitating poor countries development – the rich countries will need strong global reductions by 2020. In fact all analyses of what the world needs to do either assume we are emitting less than we are at this point or that we will start fast reductions from the very beginning of 2011…
Am I being alarmist? Well please don't take my word for it – you might want to look at the papers brought together on Four Degrees and Beyond.
So what does this mean for my work with DFID in Asia?
Even while we wait for agreement to steeper reductions in emissions, countries, cities, companies and communities are starting to act. And the UK's fast start funding is supporting their work.
Some of what we are starting to do is to give higher priority to what we already know. For example, making sure that when schools or health clinics are built, they are built in ways that provide a safe haven during a cyclone or flood. That they also can continue to operate during a drought or heat wave and are energy and water efficient. We know how to do this and in Bangladesh, DFID has been supporting the government to build schools that are also cyclone shelters. My job is to make sure we help governments do this type of thing as standard.
Some of what we need to do is more challenging. Whether we are looking at a 2°C or 4°C world is not certain. And what that means for any city, village or field is even less certain. So we need to start to manage that uncertainty by re-imagining how countries can best reduce poverty under different futures. We must think through the implications of a 2°C warming and a 4°C warming for a country's development plans. We must consider what might work if a country faces a dryer future and a wetter future. And transform their ability to manage these different scenarios.
We are already seeing more intense rainfall and more intermittent monsoons. We need to help countries think through how they can manage floods and droughts and increase food production for their growing populations. So we are working with the World Bank, Australians and the Norwegians to support the countries that share the massive South Asian Rivers – the Ganges, Indus and Brahmaputra.
This initiative is supporting analysis on what options there are to manage these rivers given the range of potential climate futures. The analysis is asking the big questions, like could Nepal store water in ways that would reduce flooding in India? Or what management options are there to increase the availability of water for agriculture, for drinking and for industry? We have started looking at this in the Ganges basin – one of South Asia’s major food producing regions, with 500 million people.
We are supporting the Third Pole Project, which builds links between climate scientists, policy makers and the media, to strengthen people’s understanding of the challenges we face and the options for action.
We are also working with Asia Development Bank on economic analysis of climate change. So that countries in South Asia know what policies would reduce emissions and increase their resilience to climate change and with what impact on development.
The other day, I had the honour of talking to Professor Swaminathan who was telling me how his foundation is supporting an Evergreen Revolution – where soil, water and biodiversity is conserved whilst increasing productivity. He is doing this through providing communities with grassroots climate risk managers, who help farmers understand climate information and the range of options in case of late rains, flood or drought risk.
So there is action – and we do know where to start. We are learning how to manage the uncertainty and find opportunities to transform the odds for the poorest people in Asia. We need to get onto a low carbon development pathway to maximise our chances for a two degree world, but start to prepare for a four degree future.