Climate Change and Water Security
Mikhail Gorbachev and Jean-Michel Severino The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently released alarming data on the consequences of global warming in some of the worlds poorest regions. By 2100, one billion to three billion people worldwide are expected to suffer from water scarcity. Global warming will increase evaporation and severely reduce rainfalls by up to 20% in the Middle East and North Africa with the amount of water available per person possibly halved by mid-century in these regions. This sudden scarcity of an element whose symbolic and spiritual importance matches its centrality to human life will cause stress and exacerbate conflicts worldwide. Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia will be the first to be exposed. The repercussions, however, will be global. Yet this bleak picture is neither an excuse for apathy nor grounds for pessimism. Conflicts may be inevitable; wars are not. Our ability to prevent water wars will depend on our collective capacity to anticipate tensions, and to find the technical and institutional solutions to manage emerging conflicts. The good news is that such solutions exist, and are proving their efficacy everyday. Dams provided they are adequately sized and designed can contribute to human development by fighting climate change and regulating water supply. Yet in a new context of scarcity, upstream infrastructure projects on international rivers may impact water quality or availability for neighboring states, thus causing tensions. River basin organizations such as that established for the Nile, Niger, or Senegal rivers help facilitate dialogue between states that share hydraulic resources. By developing a joint vision for the development of international waterways, these regional cooperation initiatives work towards common ownership of the resource, thereby reducing the risk that disputes over water use will escalate into violence. Most international waterways have such frameworks for dialogue, albeit at different stages of development and levels of achievement. If we are to take climate change predictions seriously, the international community should strengthen these initiatives. Where they do not exist, they should be created in partnership with all the countries concerned. Official development assistance can create incentives to cooperate by financing data-collection, providing technical know-how, or, indeed, by conditioning loans on constructive negotiations. Yet international water conflicts are only one side of the coin. The most violent water wars take place today within rather than among states. A dearth of water fuels ethnic strife, as communities begin to fear for their survival and seek to capture the resource. In Darfur, recurrent drought has poisoned relations between farmers and nomadic herdsmen, and the war we are helplessly witnessing today follows years of escalating conflict. Chad risks falling prey to the same cycle of violence. It is thus urgent to satisfy populations most basic human needs through local development initiatives. Rural hydraulic projects, which ensure access to water for these populations over large stretches of land, can prove to be efficient conflict prevention tools. Secured grazing corridors are being established with the help of modern satellite imagery to orient nomads and their herds to appropriate areas. Such initiatives provide rare opportunities for dialogue and collaboration between rival communities. The key is to anticipate the need for action before tensions escalate to the point of no return. Water consumption also must be addressed. Agriculture accounts for more than 70% of water use in the world. Agronomical research and technical innovations are crucial to maximizing water efficiency in this sector, and they must be taken much further. But addressing scarcity will inevitably imply revising agricultural practices and policies worldwide to ensure their sustainability. The development challenge no longer solely consists in bringing agricultural water to deprived areas. As the dramatic shrinkage of the Aral Sea, Lake Chad, and the Dead Sea illustrate, it now requires preserving scarce natural resources and ensuring their equitable distribution among conflicting needs. Responsible use will require adequate economic incentives. In West Africa or the Middle East, Central Asia or India, this, too, can contribute to abating clashes over water. Given the unprecedented scale of the threat, business as usual is not an option. The Cold War came to a peaceful end thanks to realism, foresight, and strength of will. These three qualities should be put to work if our planet is to be spared major water wars. This global challenge also demands innovation in global governance, which is why we support the creation of a UN Environment Agency, endowed with the legal and financial resources needed to tackle the issues at hand. Humanity must begin to resolve this water dilemma. Waiting is not part of the solution. ** Mikhail Gorbachev is Chairman of the Board of Green Cross International; Jean-Michel Severino is CEO of the French Development Agency. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2007. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/gorbachev4 G-8 Summit and Climate Change Katherine Sierra Two years ago, the G8 Summit in Gleneagles, Scotland promised to advance a clean development agenda and mobilize financial support for greener growth in the key emerging market economies. This years meeting, in Heiligendamm, Germany, must deliver on that promise. Since Gleneagles, a critical mass of public support to act decisively on climate change has developed. Some say a tipping point has occurred. The science and the economics of climate change has come closer as a result of the overwhelming scientific evidence in the studies of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Sir Nicholas Sterns Report for the UK government on the costs of action and inaction. Around the world expert officials, the business community, concerned citizens, and responsive governments are coming together to find common solutions to a global problem that may be the single most important issue we face as a global community. In Heiligendamm, the G-8 leaders, together with representatives of major emerging economies (Brazil, Mexico, China, India, and South Africa, who have a critical stake in energy consumption to continue to generate economic growth), will discuss a comprehensive approach encompassing a set of energy options, from energy efficiency and renewable energy, to clean coal, carbon capture and storage, and carbon sequestration. They also have a chance to advance the use of market mechanisms to do two things: mitigate climate change, and, at the same time, create incentives for expanded use of clean energy. An important way to achieve both objectives is by expanding carbon markets. Carbon finance is an effective vehicle for channeling funds for climate-friendly investments, including to the developing world. Last year alone the size of the world carbon market tripled to over $30 billion, of which about 20 percent went to projects in the developing world. By one estimate, with a long term, predictable, and equitable post-2012 global regulatory framework for curbing greenhouse gas emissions (when the Kyoto protocol expires), carbon markets could develop exponentially and deliver financial flows to developing countries of anywhere between $20 and $120 billion dollars/year. The funds are sorely needed. The World Bank calculations show that developing countries need an annual investment of about $165 billion through 2030 just to supply electricity to their people. Of this sum, only about half is readily identifiable. On top of this $80 billion gap, developing countries will need another $30 billion per year to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector alone and get on a low-carbon development path, and $10-40 billion dollars more per year to adapt to the already inevitable impact of climate change . A G8 commitment to the global carbon market will foster long-term financing beyond 2012. Such carbon finance can also tackle deforestation, which represents about 20% of the global CO2 emissions causing climate change. A forest carbon facility can reward forest conservation as a means of protecting the climate while also preserving ecosystems and generating income for poor communities in developing countries. The World Bank is keen to work with partners to experiment with such a facility for avoided deforestation. An expanded carbon market can help pay for a transformation to a low carbon economy, but it wont be enough. Like other new markets, it will take time to mature and reach out to places with weaker market institutions. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that rich countries need to take the lead because only then will the less developed economies follow, and she is right. The United Kingdom recently announced a new £800 million Environmental Transformation Fund International Window. Japans Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said his country is ready to look into the possibility of creating a new financial mechanism, with substantial funds for the relatively long- term, to help developing countries halt global warming. These are the types of climate change leadership that the world needs. Mobilizing large scale financing for clean investments today and over the next 5-10 years is critical because this is when developing countries will essentially lock-in carbon emissions for the next 50 years. If we can help them get on a low carbon path, we will have taken a giant step forward in preserving and protecting our planet while enabling them to reduce poverty and offer their citizens a better future. The meeting in Heiligendamm can advance the commitments made at Gleneagles two years ago and bring the world closer to a more sustainable future. ** Katherine Sierra is Vice President for Sustainable Development, The World Bank. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2007. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/sierra2 A Fair Deal on Climate Change Peter Singer The agreement on climate change reached at Heiligendamm by the G8 leaders merely sets the stage for the real debate to come: how will we divide up the diminishing capacity of the atmosphere to absorb our greenhouse gases? The G8 leaders agreed to seek substantial cuts in greenhouse gas emissions and to give serious consideration to the goal of halving such emissions by 2050 an outcome hailed as a triumph by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Yet the agreement commits no one to any specific targets, least of all the United States, whose president, George W. Bush, will no longer be in office in 2009, when the tough decisions have to be made. One could reasonably ask why anyone thinks such a vague agreement is any kind of advance at all. At the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, 189 countries, including the US, China, India, and all the European nations, signed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, thereby agreeing to stabilize greenhouse gases at a low enough level to prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Fifteen years later, no country has done that. US per capita greenhouse gas emissions, already the highest of any major nation when Bush took office, have continued to rise. In March, a leaked Bush administration report showed that US emissions were expected to rise almost as fast over the next decade as they did during the previous decade. Now we have yet another agreement to do what these same nations said they would do 15 years ago. Thats a triumph? If Bush or his successor wants to ensure that the next round of talks fails, that will be easy enough. In justifying his refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol, Bush has always referred to the fact that it did not commit China and India to mandatory emission limits. Now, in response to suggestions by Bush and other G8 leaders that the larger developing nations must be part of the solution to climate change, Ma Kai, the head of Chinas National Development and Reform Commission, has said that China will not commit to any quantified emissions reduction targets. Likewise, the spokesman of Indias foreign minister, Navtej Sarna, has said that his country would reject such mandatory restrictions. Are China and India being unreasonable? Their leaders have consistently pointed out that our current problems are the result of the gases emitted by the industrialized nations over the past century. That is true: most of those gases are still in the atmosphere, and without them the problem would not be nearly as urgent as it now is. China and India claim the right to proceed with industrialization and development as the developed nations did, unhampered by limits on their greenhouse gas emissions. China, India, and other developing nations, have a point or rather, three points. First, if we apply the principle You broke it, you fix it, then the developed nations have to take responsibility for our broken atmosphere, which can no longer absorb more greenhouse gases without the worlds climate changing. Second, even if we wipe the slate clean and forget about who caused the problem, it remains true that the typical US resident is responsible for about six times more greenhouse gas emissions than the typical Chinese, and as much as 18 times more than the average Indian. Third, the richer nations are better able than less well-off nations to absorb the costs of fixing the problem without causing serious harm to their populations. But it is also true that if China and India continue to increase their output of greenhouse gases, they will eventually undo all the good that would be achieved by deep emissions cuts in the industrialized nations. This year or next, China will overtake the US as the worlds biggest greenhouse gas emitter on a national, rather than a per capita basis, of course. In 25 years, according to Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, Chinas emissions could be double those of the US, Europe, and Japan combined. But there is a solution that is both fair and practical: Establish the total amount of greenhouse gases that we can allow to be emitted without causing the earths average temperature to rise more than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the point beyond which climate change could become extremely dangerous. Divide that total by the worlds population, thus calculating what each persons share of the total is. Allocate to each country a greenhouse gas emissions quota equal to the countrys population, multiplied by the per person share. Finally, allow countries that need a higher quota to buy it from those that emit less than their quota. The fairness of giving every person on earth an equal share of the atmospheres capacity to absorb our greenhouse gas emissions is difficult to deny. Why should anyone have a greater entitlement than others to use the earths atmosphere? But, in addition to being fair, this scheme also has practical benefits. It would give developing nations a strong incentive to accept mandatory quotas, because if they can keep their per capita emissions low, they will have excess emissions rights to sell to the industrialized nations. The rich countries will benefit, too, because they will be able to choose their preferred mix of reducing emissions and buying up emissions rights from developing nations. ** Peter Singer is Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the University of Melbourne. His books include How Are We to Live? and Writings on an Ethical Life. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2007. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/singer24 ____________________________________________________________________________________ Luggage? GPS? Comic books? Check out fitting gifts for grads at Yahoo! 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