Download Climate Change and Sustainable Development

Climate Change and Sustainable Development from the
Prospective of Developing Countries
Climate change is one of the greatest challenges, posing profound
socioeconomic and environmental impacts especially for developing
countries. The IPCC's findings in their 5th Assessment Report leave no
doubt, declaring that the evidence of climate change is "unequivocal"
with emission trends and indicators all moving in the wrong direction.
In fact, greenhouse gas emissions are rising faster than ever; between
years 2000 – 2010 they grew an average of 2.2% per year now stand at
nearly 50 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. The most significant
contributors to these emission levels remain fossil fuel combustion and
industrial processes. Together, they accounted for about 78% of total
GHG emission increase from 1970 to 2010.
Even some of the gains in reducing greenhouse gas emissions have
been lost. The carbon content of energy production, which had been in
decline, has reversed itself over the past 10 years. And, the combined
emission levels of just 10 countries dwarfs the emission levels of the
rest of the world combined. This is a trend that has persisted for a long
time.
Why should these trends are alarm ? Well, in the words of the IPCC in
their 5th Assessment Report, it is "extremely likely" that these
emissions are the dominant cause of observed global warming since the
mid-20th century. With global warming has come increased frequency
and intensity of drought in the Mediterranean and West Africa, as well
as other weather extremes, such as heat waves, droughts, floods,
cyclones, and wildfires in many parts of the world. These changes are
impacting us through the alteration of ecosystems, disruption of food
production and water supply, damage to infrastructure and
settlements, and increased human morbidity and mortality rates.
Without additional efforts to reduce GHG emissions beyond those in
place today, the growth in greenhouse gas emissions is expected to
persist well into the future. Driven by socioeconomic growth, global
mean surface temperature could likely increase between 3.7 to 4.8°C
compared to pre-industrial levels by the end of this century.
These changes will have serious consequences. The IPCC concluded
recently that “Future increase in precipitation extremes related to the
monsoon is very likely in Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.” They
also concluded that there could be delays in the West African rainy
season while rainfall will intensify over northern parts of South Asia,
Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Such climatic changes could pose serious livelihood risks to millions of
people in developing countries, such as:
 Death, injury, or disrupted livelihoods in low-lying coastal zones and
small islands due to storm surges, coastal flooding and sea-level rise.
 Public health impacts for large urban populations due to enhanced
heat island effects
 break down in critical services due to more frequent extreme
weather events
 Rising food insecurity among rural dwellers due to lower local crop
yields and access to food due to disruptions in international food
trade
 Loss of terrestrial and inland water ecosystems and marine and
coastal ecosystems, biodiversity and the essential services such
ecosystems provide.
 Risk of mortality and morbidity during periods of extreme heat
Developing countries specially Least developing countries are much
more vulnerable to these risks because of their reliance on agriculture,
their lower tolerance to coastal and water resource changes, and lower
financial, technical, and institutional capacity to adapt.
Developing countries are very concerned about climate change because
these risks threaten to derail plans for economic growth, development,
job creation and poverty eradication. Effective adaptation to the
looming impacts of climate change is therefore foremost on their policy
agenda for confronting the climate change challenge. This is not to say
that mitigation of greenhouse gases is unimportant. Rather, climate
change is already happening and so the need to adapt is acutely
perceived as a current urgency. Ideally, sustainable development
pathways should address both adaptation and mitigation imperatives.
The importance of sustainable development comes from the Article 2
of the United Nations Framework on Climate Change which states:
"Such a level should be achieved within a time-frame sufficient to allow
ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food
production is not threatened and to enable economic development to
proceed in a sustainable manner." This notion is also expressed in
Article 3.4 which states: “The Parties have a right to, and should,
promote sustainable development.”Also last month in New York at the
UN Climate Summit world leaders acknowledged that climate action
should be undertaken within the context of efforts to eradicate
extreme poverty and promote sustainable development
Achieving both adaptation and mitigation goals are central to
sustainable development. The Delhi Ministerial Declaration on Climate
Change and Sustainable Development outlined the importance of
linking climate change and sustainable development in both directions
when it declared: mitigation measures should be “integrated with
national development programs, taking into account that economic
development is essential for adopting measures to address climate
change” and “National sustainable development strategies should
integrate more fully climate change [adaptation] objectives in key areas
such as water, energy, health, agriculture and biodiversity. All these
sectors are of great importance and no country has developed without
addressing the cross-cutting issues of agriculture, water and energy. Of
course, current climate impacts are making it very difficult for many
developing countries to pursue sustainable development because more
resources are being required just to keep up with the status quo.
While climate change poses a moderate threat to current sustainable
development in general, we have seen cases of damages even after
adaptation. An effective climate change strategy will require the
integration of development, equity and sustainability which is closely
calibrated to the unique local requirements of effective adaptation.
A new approach is needed to address water, agriculture and energy,
sectors that are so integral to climate change adaptation and mitigation
in developing countries. At its heart, this will involve a nexus approach
that can effectively capture important co-benefits of local sustainable
development in developing countries such as better air quality,
improvements in public health, and efficiency gains from optimizing
economies of scale. Instead of seeing only impacts and constraints, we
can begin to view climate change as an opportunity for developing an
integrated approach for water, energy and agriculture within the
context of sustainable development. Indeed, the realities of climate
change are forcing us to look for complementarities.
A new approach will also involve retaining a “development first”
mentality. Concrete actions are needed to promote a strong and
inclusive accelerated transition towards a more sustainable future and
cooperation at global, regional and local levels. The starting point is to
establish realistic development priorities that jointly achieve
development and poverty eradication objectives and can transform
threats into opportunities.
There are many development initiatives that are both climate resilient
and development-friendly. Such options can be explored at various
levels and can be scaled up and coupled with international initiatives to
enhance their impacts. Of course there are many challenges facing
developing countries to attain sustainable development including
policy, technical, financial, socio-economic, informational, regulatory
and institutional. Some of these can be addressed at the national level;
others through South-South and/or international cooperation.
There are a large number of technologies that are currently available to
simultaneously reduce GHG emissions and promote sustainable
development. There is high potential for renewable energy, energy
efficiency, and transportation and irrigation technologies especially in
Africa. The context for investments and new business partnerships has
never been better.
Ismail Elgizouli 14th -October 2014