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The Equity Issue:
Considering the Cost of Inaction for
Developing Countries
Climate Change is a
Global Problem
 The Impacts of climate change will be
distributed unevenly
 Countries differ in vulnerability, wealth,
capacity, and resources
 The costs of damages, adaptation and
mitigation may be borne inequitably
“Costs” of Climate Change
Three types of costs:
1.
market impacts such as
changes in farm output, public
health expenditures, and
property losses, and other
cases where the effects of
climate change have welldefined prices
2.
physical damages that have
no prices attached, such as
human deaths, extinctions of
other species, and numerous
forms of environmental
damage
3.
“socially contingent,” i.e.
dependent on how society
responds to physical changes
In all three areas of costs,
the impact of climate
change will be
disproportionately bad
for the countries that
have had the least to do
with adding carbon to
the atmosphere
In other words, developing
countries stand to pay
the most for climate
change
Sea Level Rise
A sea level rise of 0.4 meters by 2080
 200 million people living in areas subject to coastal
flooding
 Millions of environmental refugees, about 150 million
by 2050
 Example: In Bangladesh, where half the population
lives in areas less than five meters above sea level, a
one percent increase in average global temperatures
will cause a loss of 10 percent of all land area. With
permanent flooding and shortages of drinking water,
climate change could result in 30 to 40 million
Bangladeshi refugees
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Global_Sea_Level_Rise_Risks_png
Costs of immigration
 Will fall on developed countries money in
the form of humanitarian aid, higher
prices for tropical products, and lower
profits from businesses abroad
 Will fall on environmental refugees
emotionally.
Agriculture
 Developing-country farmers will have much
less ability to make agricultural adaptations
than their rich-country counterparts
 Climate change is worse for developing
countries because they are in many cases
located in warmer, more tropical areas
 Lower agricultural yields in developing
countries will also make it increasing difficult to
meet UN Millennium Development Goals, like
halving the share of people who suffer from
hunger by 2015
Agriculture
 Food production due to warmer temperatures
may increase in the North
 A question of equity and distribution will arise:
almost all of the population growth will be in
the global South, while food production will
shift heavily toward the global North.
 There is no guarantee that any increased food
supply will be delivered to those in need.
Human Health
 Countries that are already experiencing water-stressed
conditions will grow rapidly in population, from 1.8
billion in 1990 to 5 billion by 2025
 Most of the current water-stressed areas are in the South
 South has limited access to health care systems
 Many communities in the South have little or no access to
safe, clean drinking water because of a lack of water
treatment, water delivery, and sanitation systems.
 Warmer, wetter conditions promote the spread of both
the mosquitoes that transmit malaria and the
pathogens that cause the most serious forms of
diarrhea in developing countries. Droughts will limit
both diseases, but storms and floods will help them to
spread.
Human Health
 A calculated estimate by the World Health Organization
suggests that in 2000, worldwide deaths attributable to
climate change included at least 77,000 due to
malnutrition, 47,000 due to diarrhea, 27,000 due to
malaria, and 2,000 due to flooding
 More deaths from malnutrition are also expected as
temperatures begin to rise, due to the forecast of a
decline in crop yields in the tropics
 malnutrition, malaria, and diarrhea interact with each
other, and with other diseases such as HIV-AIDS;
people weakened by one disease are more likely to be
harmed by another one.
Estimated Annual Losses (gains) if the event that C02 concentrations reach
twice preindustrial levels (US billions of dollars)
http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=192&ArticleID=2758
EU
USA
EX-USSR
CHINA
WORLD
Coastal
Protectio
n
Loss Coastal
Land
Coastal
Wetlands
including
fishing
losses
Other
Ecosyste
ms
Agriculture
0.1
0.2
0.0
0.0
1.1
0.3
2.1
1.2
0.0
14.0
4.9
5.6
1.2
0.6
31.6
9.8
7.4
2.3
2.2
40.5
9.7
7.4
6.2
7.8
39.1
Forestry
0.2
1.0
0.6
0.0
3.4
Energy
Industry
Water
Manage
ment
Mortality
7.0
6.9
(0.7)
0.7
23.1
14.0
13.7
3.0
1.6
46.7
21.9
16.6
3.9
4.9
82
Air Pollution
3.5
6.4
2.1
0.2
15.4
Emigration
1.0
0.5
0.2
0.6
4.3
Tropical
Cyclones
0.0
0.2
0.0
0.1
3.0
TOTAL
72.4
68.0
20.0
18.7
304.2
Natural disaster, environmental damage, poorly
designed cities and climate change

Floods: In 1998 the Yangtze River in China burst its banks causing the worst floods
in 50 years. It was caused partly by the loss of up to 80 per cent of trees in the
river basin.

Two million people in Bangladesh had their homes flooded in 1999 as a result of
deforestation in the Himalayas.

Forest fires: The health of 70 million may have been affected by the forest fires in
Indonesia in 1997 which cast a pall of smoke over six South East Asian countries.
Three million hectares of Brazil's forests in Roraima burnt in the same year. A
similar area of forest was alight in Mongolia in 1996. Experts blame the fires on
drought, deforestation and land clearance.

Earthquakes: Around 80 per cent of deaths from earthquakes are caused by
collapsing buildings. Most of the 100,000 who died in the 1988 Armenian quake
lived in cheap, concrete, buildings.

Deforestation: Forest clearance adds to droughts and desertification. Ethiopia's
highlands, which have supported agriculture for millennia, have lost 90 per cent of
their trees since 1990 making it hard to grow crops. An estimated 135 million
people are in danger of becoming environmental refugees in Mali and Burkina
Faso. Desertification as a result of deforestation and land clearance has forced an
estimated one in six to leave the land.
UNEP (2001) IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE TO COST THE WORLD $US 300 BILLION A YEAR
Inaction Costs Developing
Countries More

Decision-making related to climate change must take into account the
unique characteristics of the "problem": large

Many developing countries are in relatively hot climates, depend more
heavily on agriculture, and have less well developed infrastructure and
social structures; thus, they may suffer more than average, perhaps much
more.

EQUITY means "the quality of being impartial" or "something that is fair
and just". The UNFCCC, including the references to equity and equitable
in Articles 3.1, 4.2.a and 11.2

Equity has two components: the distribution of the costs of damages or
adaptation and of measures to mitigate climate change

Because countries differ substantially in vulnerability, wealth, capacity,
resource endowments and other factors listed below, the costs of the
damages, adaptation and mitigation may be borne inequitably, unless the
distribution of these costs is addressed explicitly.
Bottomline : Developing countries require
support from developed countries
 Providing financial assistance requires approaches to
international equity and cooperation
 The Global Environment Facility (GEF) established in
1991 helps developing countries fund projects and
programs that protect the global environment.
 GEF grants support projects related to biodiversity, climate
change, international waters, land degradation, the ozone
layer, and persistent organic pollutants.
 GEF is an independent financial organization that provides
grants to developing countries for projects that benefit the
global environment and promote sustainable livelihoods in
local communities
 Summary for Policymakers: The Economic
and Social Dimensions of Climate Change –
IPCC Working Group III
http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/sarsum3.htm
 Frank Ackerman and Elizabeth Stanton, 2006
"The Cost of Inaction" Report to the Friends of
Earth England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/rp/ClimateCostsofInaction.pdf