New Straits Times
By Elizabeth John IF there ever was a
picture that painted but a single word, it would be a portrait of
climate change and all it would utter is: disaster. Before this year, the general belief locally was that a warming earth troubled mostly polar bears and fragile icecaps.
The images of shops and houses slipping under angry floodwaters and
thousands of Johor folk huddled in shelters across the state earlier
this year radically changed that view. It gave Malaysians a
glimpse of what life might be like if climate change delivered the
extreme weather events all those scaremongers promised it would. This vision grew clearer as scenes of such disasters were replayed around the world.
Natural disasters busted so many records this year that the Society of
German language picked klimakatastrophe (climate disaster) as its word
of the year. Then along came An Inconvenient Truth which,
hand-in-hand with the wacky weather, yanked climate change from the
realm of scientists and placed it firmly within the wider public view.
Not everyone bought this Hollywood-styled slick pitch by Al Gore;
certainly not one determined sceptic who sparked a six-month long
debate in the letters page of this newspaper on whether the science
behind climate change was credible. But the doubts of most
others were quelled by an International Panel on Climate Change
scientific report that said two crucial things: climate change is real
and people are very likely (that means just 10 per cent short of
certainly) its prime cause. "It didn't end the debate entirely," admits Meteorology Department director-general Dr Yap Kok Seng.
"But the science was far more certain than it had been before. The
climate is changing. For us, this meant more variability and weather
extremes." And so the picture changed. In Malaysia, it
spurred a flurry of government-backed studies and a string of seminars
and conferences to inform decision-makers and the public. Globally, it morphed from an is-this-fact-or-fiction dispute into a global who-should-fix-it debate. This debate quickly proved to be the classic divide - between rich and poor, developed and developing.
The worst impacts of climate change will be felt by the poorest. But
it's the richest that tread the earth with the heaviest carbon
footprint. And the world's richest, the United States, just
won't sign up for cuts unless fast developing big-emitters like China
and India do, too. According to the United Nations Development
Programme's Human Development Report, rich countries account for about
seven out of every 10 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO) that has been
emitted since the start of the industrial era. And as the
report goes on to point out, cumulative past emissions drive today's
climate change and determine the space available for future emissions.
When the state of Texas emits more than the total carbon footprint of
sub-Saharan Africa, a region of 720 million, it's hardly surprising
that poor and developing countries balk at the suggestion of making
cuts. Part of the problem is economic. Cuts will mean no
overuse of fossil fuel, which in turn cuts back on energy that drives
every country's carbon-belching growth engine. The other is
ethical. In countries like India, where emissions are only set to rise
and rise, around 500 million people live without access to modern
electricity, says the report. And nowhere was this debate
hotter than in Bali, where 190 nations gathered to find a way forward
on cutting emissions and arresting devastating change. For
over a week, negotiators bickered over the terms and conditions of
talks on a new deal after the Kyoto Protocol's first phase of
commitment ends in 2012. The Protocol binds 36 developed nations to cut emissions by five per cent below 1990 levels, by 2012. Developing countries wanted the developed world to bear the burden - to pay their carbon debt to earth. They wanted assistance, rewards for not cutting down forests and the transfer of clean technology.
Countries from both sides of the divide that had a great deal to lose
money-wise, quickly quashed attempts to set a target that would guide
nations on how much emissions they should cut. The only thing that was even handed at Bali was the criticism. Rich nations were criticised for the poor job done in reducing emissions so far and were told to get their house in order.
But Bali spared no one a hard time and Malaysia found itself among the
10 lowest in an annual index on climate change performance released at
the meeting. The index by Germanwatch, a North-South
initiative, placed Malaysia 49th among 56 countries that together are
responsible for over 90 per cent of the global CO emissions. That figure didn't even include emissions from changes in land use, which in our case means deforestation.
This ranking only compounded the ugly figures from the Human
Development Report released just a week before, which announced that
Malaysia's carbon emissions had leapt by 221 per cent since 1990. It's the highest growth rate in the world. Now, it isn't as if the country's been completely idle about reducing emissions.
Data on emissions is being gathered and reduction strategies plotted in
the preparation of Malaysia's second national report to the UN on
climate change. There has been a renewed push for the use of biofuels and making buildings energy efficient.
Plans have been drawn up for an expansion of the public transport
system and carbon-cutting Clean Development Mechanism projects have
been increased. And homeowners, as well as developers, are being sold the idea of solar energy.
"The figures are alarming but not entirely shocking," is how Malaysian
Nature Society's (MNS) Andrew Sebastian describes the situation.
"We just haven't addressed this issue holistically. We don't have a
climate action plan, with milestones and deliverables, that includes
all sectors," adds Sebastian who heads MNS' communications department.
Getting the real big emitters on board is a point veteran
environmentalist Gurmit Singh has been harping on at the dozens of
climate change seminars he has addressed this year. "Transport
is the biggest single sectoral fossil fuel user in this country," the
Centre for Environment, Technology & Development Malaysia's
executive director has been saying. "Yet its contribution to carbon
emissions isn't even addressed in the country's energy policy."
He has also warned that with plans to achieve developed status by 2020,
Malaysia must worry about when it will have to take on compulsory
emission cuts like other developed countries. But a possibly
more compelling reason for doing anything at all is the warning from
the UN of a dramatic increase in climate- related disasters. Such disasters have already quadrupled over the past two decades, hitting both rich and poor. The Johor floods cost the government RM1.5 billion. Billions more are being spent to fight future disasters. Could the picture be any clearer?
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