Download V. Reducing environmental vulnerability: what needs - UN

Environmental Vulnerability of the LDCs
Presented at
the brainstorming meeting on the substantive preparations for
UNLDC IV
Organised by the UNOHRLLS
New York, USA: 15 July 2010
by
Fahmida Khatun, PhD
Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), Bangladesh
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PRESENTATION OUTLINE
 Background
 Severity
of the problem
 Diversity
 Major
of the problem
milestones
 Reducing
environmental vulnerability: what
needs to be done?
I. Background
• LDCs face multiple environmental problems, such as:
• air and water pollution, soil degradation, desertification,
deforestation, depletion of fish resources, loss of biodiversity and
ecosystem, urbanization and congestion
•. Some of the LDCs are also vulnerable to the risk of climate change,
including possible sea level rise, which would severely impact the lives and
livelihoods of a large number of people;
• LDCs feature prominently in terms of lowest Environmental Performance
Indicator (EPI);
• Environmental problems, particularly climate change poses a significant
threat to the achievement of the MDG of the United Nations which sets
environmental sustainability (Goal no. 7) as one of the eight MDGs to
achieve global economic and social well-being;.
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II. Severity of the problem: Increased vulnerability
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II. Severity of the problem: Climate change hit list
Table 1: Twelve countries on climate change hit list
Coastal 1m
Drought
Flood
Storm
(Sea Level Rise)
All Low Lying Island
Malawi
Bangladesh Philippines States
Ethiopia
China
Bangladesh Vietnam
Zimbabwe
India
Madagascar Egypt
India
Cambodia
Vietnam
Tunisia
Mozambique Mozambique Moldova
Indonesia
Niger
Lao PDR
Mongolia
Mauritania
Mauritania
Pakistan
Haiti
China
Eritrea
Sri Lanka
Samoa
Mexico
Sudan
Thailand
Tonga
Myanmar
Chad
Vietnam
China
Bangladesh
Kenya
Benin
Honduras Senegal
Iran
Rwanda
Fiji
Libya
Source: World Bank 2009.
Agriculture
Sudan
Senegal
Zimbabwe
Mali
Zambia
Morocco
Niger
India
Malawi
Algeria
Ethiopia
Pakistan 5
III. Diversity of the problem: Air pollution
• South Asian cities have the highest levels of air pollution
globally, with extremely high levels of particulate matters
PM10
• Air pollution is more an Asian problem than an African
one, due to mainly the difference in growth and
industrialization between Asia and African LDCs
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III. Diversity of the problem: Water pollution
• LDCs also face various types of water-related environmental
problems including water pollution, saline water intrusion, and
increased occurrence of floods;
• African LDCs have the lowest per capita fresh water
availability in the world;
• Arsenic has been a major source of ground-water
contamination in countries such as Bangladesh
• Most of the Asian and African LDCs either have lesser
availability of water or do not have the technological and
economic capabilities to use water resources efficiently
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III. Diversity of the problem: Land degradation
•About 46% of LDCs in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia suffer the worst
from desertification;
• Land degradation in African LDCs such as Burkina Faso, Burundi,
Eritrea, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mali, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Togo and
Uganda is a serious threat for the livelihoods of their farmers;
• In Burundi the share of degraded and severely degraded land
comprises of 56.66 and 53.78 percent respectively, of total land. In
Rwanda the share of such land is 56.49 and 51.48 percent respectively;
• Among the Asian LDCs, Afghanistan, Nepal and Yemen are in the
worst situations in terms of land degradation, where severely degraded
land ranges from 13.29 percent to 16.6 percent of total land area.
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III. Diversity of the problem: Solid waste and deforestation
Solid waste management
* In most of the mega cities of LDCs, such as Addis Ababa, Dhaka,
Kampala, Khartoum and Niamey, inhabitants suffer water- and
air-borne diseases due to poorly managed wastes and sewages.
Deforestation and loss of biodiversity
• Most Asian LDCs either have little forest cover or are on the
verge of losing their natural forests;
* With a few exceptions such as Bhutan in Asia and Gambia,
Lesotho, Rwanda in Africa, LDCs lost considerable area of their
forestland from 1990 to 2005.
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III. Diversity of the problem: Climate change
• Some of the sectors that are particularly vulnerable to climate
change include water, agriculture, human health, tourism,
fisheries, etc;
• Livelihood activities of millions of people in Bangladesh,
Maldives, Nepal and Sub-Saharan Africa will suffer;
• Agriculture in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa will be
severely affected with a threat to food security;
• Millions will become ‘climate refugees’ in Bangladesh,
Maldives and many smaller Asian and African islands.
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III. Diversity of the problem: Natural disaster
* In 2007 a total of 14 African countries including Ghana,
Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Mali, Burkina Faso suffered
from unprecedented floods;
• In 2000 heavy flood in Mozambique due to heavy rain and
cyclone killed thousands and the country incurred millions
worth of loss;
• Bangladesh was badly affected by flood in 2007, 1998 and
1988, besides regular seasonal floods and by cyclone in 2007;
• Ethiopia experienced one of the worst floods in its history in
the year 2006.
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III. Diversity of the problem: Examples
Country
Environmental Problems
Bangladesh
Widespread contamination of surface water; effects of climate
change including sea level rise, increased flooding, intensified
storms, earthquake
Deforestation leading to erosion and flooding. Water pollution
caused by dumping of solid and industrial wastes, use of
pesticides
Deforestation combined with perennial overuse of steep
hillsides to produce severe slope instability and catastrophic
landslides during heavy rains; hurricane
Land degradation, soil erosion
Sea level rise and storms due to climate change
Flood, cyclone
Loss of forest, forest degradation, soil erosion, air pollution,
water pollution and unmanaged solid waste
Water contamination by heavy metal and oil spills
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Deforestation
Cambodia
Haiti
Malawi
Maldives
Myanmar
Nepal
Niger
Sierra Leone
IV. Major milestones
UNFCCC
For the first time the Kyoto Protocol introduced binding targets
for greenhouse gas emissions in 37 industrialised countries
from 2008 to 2012;
Several member countries of the UNFCCC have not ratified the
Kyoto Protocol and do not acknowledge its requirements
regarding emissions;
Bali Action Plan (2007),Copenhagen (2009) – parties agreed for
enhanced cooperation on adaptation, financial and
technological support;
Others
WTO
Brussels Plan of Action
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V. Reducing environmental vulnerability: what needs to be done?
Public policies at the domestic level
* Several governments have formulated the National
Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) to address impact of
climate change;
* However, formulation of policies is not the end but only a
step towards dealing with the problem;
* Effective implementation of plans requires careful
operational strategies along with provisions for enough
resources.
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V. Reducing environmental vulnerability: what needs to be done?
Global initiatives
Support is required for:
• mitigation of increased greenhouse gas emissions;
• adaptation to climate change;
• technology transfers and development, and
• financing
* Given the divergence of environmental concerns, priorities
for LDCs as regards addressing the environment will be
different across various regions of LDCs.
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V. Reducing environmental vulnerability: what needs to be done?
Adaptation versus mitigation
• LDCs contribute negligibly to the global GHG emission
• Major focus is to devise adaptation policies and measures. Measures are
required in the following areas:
• Agriculture, forestry and fisheries ; Water supplies; Extreme events; Capacity
building including research; Coastal zones; Infrastructure; Human health;
National policies
* Although adaptation needs are clearly recognised under the
UNFCCC, a number of economic, technical, policy, regulatory, and
institutional barriers still persist regarding the transfer of technology
and adaptability of these countries.
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V. Reducing environmental vulnerability: what needs to be done?
Technology transfer
• Transfer and diffusion of environmentally sound technologies is a key
element of any effective international response to the global climate change
challenge and one of the pillars of the UNFCCC ;
• In case of technology transfer the main issues on the table are technology
financing, research and development, including intellectual property rights
(IPRs) and institutional arrangements;
• Under Article 66.2 in TRIPS, developed countries are required to provide
incentives to their national enterprises to promote transfer of technologies
to LDCs;
• Developed countries are not effectively implementing this article and as
such, are not fulfilling their obligations under the WTO.
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V. Reducing environmental vulnerability: what needs to be done?
Financing climate change
• Adaptation to climate change will bring with it additional costs for both
public and private sectors;
• Emphasis is on new and additional fund for adaptation, which
compliments rather than compete with ODA
• Where it will come from:
• direct contributions from developed country governments;
• market mechanisms,;
• international initiatives –A4T under the WTO
• Need for funds is in the order of hundreds of billions of USD per year;
• However, the need for adaptation funds is overshadowed by other funds 18
V. Reducing environmental vulnerability: what needs to be done?
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V. Reducing environmental vulnerability: what needs to be done?
300
278.82
262.15
250
UNFCCC estimate-low
end
200
G77 mand China
proposal-low end-2007
GDP
150
100
50
28.98
Available or pledgedGEF-UNFCCC+nonUNFCCC Channels
0
Estimates of w hat is needed
w hat is available or pledged
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V. Reducing environmental vulnerability: what needs to be done?
Financing climate change
The issues is not only about how to raise the money, but also about how
finance is channeled and governed;
Public financing is generally channeled through large centralised funds
while market-based financing is typically delivered through myriad
individually developed projects ;
Large funds have issues with governance, conditionality, efficiency, and
direct access, while market mechanisms have issues of distribution,
sustainability, effectiveness, and unintended consequences;
All funds have a limited time horizon, up to 2020 .
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V. Reducing environmental vulnerability: what needs to be done?
Target based measures
•BPoA did not have any target based approach towards
reducing environmental vulnerability;
• Measurable targets are needed for both international and
domestic levels ;
* Parallel initiatives have to be monitored closely in terms
of meeting commitments and deliverables.
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Thank You
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