South Asian Media Net
COLOMBO: The Government is expected to introduce a
Green Trust to help overcome the effects of climate change. “We are
trying to introduce a Green Trust as a local adaptation fund, from next
year onwards” revealed Minister of Environmental and Natural Resources
Champika Ranawaka while adding that an estimated 70 percent of all
natural disasters in Sri Lanka were linked to climate change.
The Minister made this revelation at the launch of the Human
Development Report for 2007/2008, held on Thursday at the Lakshman
Kadirgamar Institute for International Relations, under the theme of
‘Fighting Climate Change: Human Solidarity in a Divided World’.
Despite being a small country, climate change can result in the
migration of populations from the dry zone to wet zone, and the
Northern and Eastern coastal populations inland in the long run. Water
resources, agriculture, health in the form of vector born diseases and
coastal areas in Sri Lanka will receive the biggest blow from climate
change.
Vice Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on climate change, Prof.
Mohan Munesinghe, said that hundreds of millions of people will be
affected if nothing is done about climate change. “The time for action
on adaptation is now, just as it is for mitigation” he said while
adding that the proportion spent on adapting to climate change should
match the GDP of the country and needs to grow accordingly. Improving
the resilience to sustainable development can improve the mitigation.
“Binding mitigation to adaptation is the way forward in sustainable
development” he said.
Prof. Munesinghe said when the IPCC first started; development and
climate change were totally different themes. But today it has been
learnt at the fourth assessment out this year, that climate change and
development should be dealt with in an integrated way. “This is exactly
what the UNDP report says and it is music to our ears to hear a
powerful organization repeat and stress this fact” the Prof noted.
He added that as part of a vicious cycle the climate affects
development and development in turn affects the climate. To combat
this, two filter mechanisms need to be introduced; the adaptation to
survive in this bad climate and mitigation to reduce emissions. “These
are two tools humans have against climate change” the professor said
adding that it is human action that has caused this problem and it is
human action that will find a solution. He said there are many
definitions of ‘sustainable development’. And instead of debating ‘what
sustainable development is’, steps should be taken to move towards it.
Prof Munasinghe also illustrated how developed countries have increased
their carbon emissions in respect to their increase in per capita
income. They have exceeded the safe limits. Developing countries need
to follow a new path referred as the ‘tunnel’, where same level of
development is reached without burdening the environment. “Environment
and climate change should not block development.”
Global warming has resulted in an economic crisis, which in turn has
become a political crisis in countries like Australia. Climate change
has particularly affected poor Asian and African countries. “There has
not been adequate response to global warming, particularly in the
developed countries, which are the major contributors with their high
level pollution.” He added that most international treaties are mere
‘political covers’, which is evident by the almost non-response towards
the climate problem.
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