Negotiators Must Move Beyond Rhetoric At Climate Talks In Bangkok

Developed countries have to put climate financing on the table

Governments must move beyond the rhetoric of the past few days to quicken the pace of global climate change negotiations which begin in Bangkok on Monday September 28, or risk plunging millions of people further into poverty, Oxfam International said today.

The UN climate change talks, which continue until Friday October 9, will come hot on the heels of the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh and will take place in one of the world’s most vulnerable regions to climate change, the Asia-Pacific.

Oxfam New Zealand Executive Director, Barry Coates, said that with the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen just around the corner in December, developed countries needed to show they were serious about securing a fair and safe global climate agreement by committing to financing for developing countries to cope with the climate impacts that they did not cause.

“We need to be making our clean and green image real, not just a list of one liners on the David Letterman show. Our responsibilities extend to our Pacific neighbours. They need sea walls, salt water tolerant crops and cyclone-proof shelters right now. We can’t expect them and other developing countries to sign a deal that doesn’t include industrialised countries paying for the damage we have caused,” said Coates.

“New Zealand negotiators need to show their hand in Bangkok. To be supportive of a fair global deal means we say how much climate change adaptation funding we will provide to the developing world. To do otherwise means we are blocking the deal,” he added.

Developed countries can break the deadlock at the heart of these negotiations and show they mean business by committing at least US$150 billion to help people in developing countries adapt to the escalating impacts of climate change and reduce their own emissions. The money should be part of a transparent Global Fund administered by the UN. Importantly, the funds must be additional to existing aid commitments otherwise hard-won progress in the effort to reduce poverty will be reversed. Raiding money from hospitals and schools to pay for climate change is unacceptable.

Poor communities around the world are least responsible for causing climate change but are bearing the brunt of its impacts, from worsening extreme weather events and contamination of water sources to unpredictable seasons and the loss of land altogether.

“Climate change can be seen right here in Thailand, the world’s leading rice exporter. The area where the highest quality jasmine rice comes from is under threat, as prolonged droughts followed by more intense rainfall are devastating crops and people’s livelihoods,” Coates said. “Agricultural research is a crucial step in the transition to low-carbon societies. As New Zealand ramps up its research effort, the benefits must flow to countries like Thailand, who are on the front lines of climate change,” he added.

Many developing countries have already taken significant steps to reduce emissions and signalled their willingness to discuss further action – provided that developed countries provide financial and technological support.

“Meanwhile, rich countries like New Zealand are still dodging the issue of financing for developing countries, which is a crucial roadblock in the climate negotiations," Coates said. “Asking a poor country to adapt to climate change and cut their own emissions without financing on the table is like asking them to pay the mechanic’s bill after you crashed their car."

EDITORS NOTES:

EVENTS

Events throughout the two weeks under the umbrella of the Global Call for Climate Action:

Thursday 1 October: Women’s Rally, Bangkok Celebrities will join with hundreds of women from across the region to raise awareness of the disproportionate impact climate change has on women;

Tuesday 6 October: Asian People’s Climate Court, Bangkok ‘Climate witnesses’ from countries hit by climate change including Thailand, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Indonesia and Nepal will tell their personal stories of hardship and resilience in front of a judge and panel of experts.

FAST FACTS:

CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC REGION:

• Climate change could seriously hinder the Asia-Pacific’s sustainable development and poverty reduction efforts.

• South-East Asia is one of the world’s most vulnerable regions to climate change due to its long coastlines, high concentration of population and economic activity in coastal areas, and heavy reliance on agriculture, natural resources and forestry. Climate change is already affecting the region: extreme weather events such as heat waves, droughts, floods and tropical cyclones have increased in intensity in recent decades. This is exacerbating water shortages, hampering agricultural production and threatening food security, causing forest fires and coastal degradation, and increasing health risks.

• The worst is yet to come. If emissions continue to increase, the annual mean temperature in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam is projected to rise by 4.8 degrees Celsius by 2100 from the 1990 level on average; the world’s leading climate scientists now predict that there is a high likelihood that sea levels will rise a metre or more by the end of the century, with dire consequences for the region. Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam are projected to see increasingly drier weather in the next 20 to 30 years.

• In more severe climate change scenarios, rising seas would submerge much of the Maldives and inundate 18 per cent of Bangladesh's land.

• The mean cost of climate change for Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam – if the world continues ‘business-as-usual’ – could be equivalent to losing 6.7 per cent of combined gross domestic product (GDP) each year by 2100, more than twice the global average loss.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND WOMEN:

• Climate change affects us all, but it has a bigger impact on women than men throughout the developing world.

• Women often grow the family’s food, fetch fuel and water, and bring up the children. So when clean water becomes harder to find during a drought, crops are destroyed by floods, or children become sick, women are hit hardest and they have to find solutions.

• Women are also hardest hit by disasters. In the 1991 cyclone in Bangladesh, the death rate for women was almost five times higher than that of men. Women had not been taught to swim, and did not receive warning information.

• In the tsunami in Sri Lanka in December 2004, many more women died than men because they did not know how to swim or climb trees.

• In south-west Bangladesh, increased salinisation of drinking water sources is making women travel longer distances on foot, up to 10km every day in search of water.

• Droughts in the Philippines are making it harder for women to look for food, fuel and water, which were previously available within communities. In remote areas, women and girls are forced to walk for hours to fetch water. This makes them more vulnerable to accidents and acts of violence.

• During a food crisis, women and girls often reduce their intake in favour of males, which increases the likelihood of malnutrition.

ENDS

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