Climate Change and the Developing World By

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Climate Change and the Developing WorldBy

• R.K. Pachauri
• Director General, TERI and Chairman, IPCC
• At
• Climate Change and Sustainable Development Paths
  to Progress
• Minnesota
• 14th October 2004

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Overview of Energy and Environment Situation in
Different Countries
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Climate change is it for real?

• It is likely that -
• Globally 1990s was the warmest decade and 1998
  the warmest year
• The number of hot days have increased while cold
  days and frost has decreased in all land areas
  during the 20th century
• Continental precipitation has increased by 5-10
  over the 20th century although it may have
  decreased in some regions
• Frequency and severity of droughts have increased
  particularly in Asia and Africa
• Non polar glaciers have retreated during the
  20th century
• Snow cover has decreased in areas by 10 since
  1960

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But for sure .. Its been hot

Combined annual land and sea surface
temperature anomalies (oC)
Source-IPCC WGI
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Detecting the anthropogenic signal
There is a growing body of evidence that human
activities are responsible for the change in the
climate system The warming over the past
hundred years in unlikely to be due to internal
variability of the climate system alone The
estimated rate and magnitude of global warming
due to increasing concentrations of greenhouse
gases alone are comparable with or larger than
observed warming
In light of new evidence and taking into account
the remaining uncertainties most of the observed
warming over the last 50 years is likely to have
been due to increase in GHG concentration
Source IPCC, TAR
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Increasing trend of GHG concentration

• Atmospheric concentration of CO2 increased by 31
  up to 1999 since the industrial revolution
• Todays concentration has not been exceeded
  during the past 420,000 years and likely not in
  the past 20 million years
• The average rate of increase since 1980 has been
  0.4 annually

Source IPCC TAR
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Assessing vulnerability
The impacts of climate change will fall
disproportionately upon developing countries and
the poor persons within all countries, thereby
exacerbate inequities in health status and access
to adequate food, clean water and other
resources IPCC, Third Assessment Report
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Additional millions at risk for increases in
global temperature
Risk of water shortage
Risk of malaria
Risk of hunger
Risk of coastal flooding
Source Millions at Risk, M L Parry and M
Livermore, University of East Anglia
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Climate change and its linkages with sustainable
development

• Primary factors responsible for climate change
  are similar to those for most technological
  changes
• life styles and demographic shifts
• Climate change in turn aggravates environmental
  problems- loss of biodiversity, air pollution,
  desertification etc
• The developmental implications of climate change
  -
• accentuating levels of poverty and inequity
• destruction and damage of infrastructure
• spread of diseases
• degradation of natural resources
• environmental and socio-economic issues
• economic growth

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Poverty beyond income
Poverty is deprivation of basic capabilities,
rather than merely low income, which can be
reflected in premature mortality, significant
undernourishment (especially of children),
persistent morbidity, widespread illiteracy, and
other failures.
Power-lessness
Vulner-ability
Isolation
Physical weakness
Poverty
Amartya Sen
The deprivation trap
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Increasing weather havoc

• Climate change, extreme weather and disasters

Most insured damages were in the north Most
people were affected in the South
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Surprises that changing climate can spring

• Transition from one equilibrium condition to
  another may not be smooth (1xCO2 2xCO2)
• Sensitivity of systems to climate change may be
  - nonlinear, complex and discontinuous
• Singularities could lead to rapid, large and
  unexpected impacts on local, regional and global
  scales
• The actual discontinuous impact could lag the
  trigger by decades to century

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Instances of possible singular events

• Breakdown of the thermohaline circulation
• Disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheet
• Shift in mean climate towards an El Nino like
  state
• Runaway carbon dynamics - reduced sink capacity,
  release of methane from hydrates, carbon from
  permafrost
• Rearrangement of biome distribution

Such events can overwhelm our response strategies
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Global scenario 2003
Globally, the year 2003 saw all-time temperature
records being broke.
Human toll of heat waves select examples from
Europe in August 2003
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Adaptation - an immediate necessity
Source IPCC Syn report
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Source GRID Arendal
Impacts
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Adaptation - a necessary response

• In the future, food security will be at the top
  of the agenda in Asian countries because of
• growing population
• many direct and indirect effects of climate
  change
• By the year 2050, about 42 of the world
  population would concentrate in India and China
• Climatic variability and change will seriously
  endanger sustained agricultural production in
  Asia in coming decades

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Adaptation - the process
Planned anticipatory adaptation has the potential
to reduce vulnerability and realize opportunities
associated with climate change
Source IPCC TAR
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Cost of stabilizing
The CO2 reductions and macro economic costs to
reach a stabilization target would depend on the
stabilization targets
IPCC TAR, Syn Report
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Restructuring the Global Energy System ..

• The need for deep cuts in emission of GHGs
• Participation in market based mechanisms /CDM
  projects local benefits, development objectives,
  technological up-gradation/advancement
• Focusing on priority action in consuming sectors
  Introduce labeling of consumer appliances
• Joint commercialization between developed and
  developing countries (the importance of
  customization)
• Trade barriers Removing trade barriers in
  developed countries could increase incomes in
  developing countries by 200-400 billion p.a.
• Technology transfer on concessional terms Joint
  technology development between developed and
  developing countries.

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Restructuring the Global Energy System

• Moving towards low carbon energy supply
• Modernizing biomass energy systems
• Institutional innovation at the global level
• South-south transfer
• Development assistance from advanced developing
  countries to LDCs
• Exploit the synergy between local and global
  environment issues with clear priority to the
  local.
• Technological empowerment the poor can be
  trained for using information technologies,
  renewable energy technologies, agricultural
  biotechnologies, etc.

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Spaceship Earth

• Boulding Economists have failed to understand
  open vs. closed earth
• For the sake of picturesqueness, I am tempted to
  call the open economy the cowboy economy, the
  cowboy being symbolic of the illimitable plains
  and also associated with reckless, exploitative,
  romantic, and violent behavior, which is
  characteristic of open societies. The closed
  economy of the future might similarly be called
  the spaceman economy, in which the earth has
  become a single spaceship, without unlimited
  reservoirs of anything, either for extraction or
  for pollution.

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The global affliction lacking a paradigm which is

• Responsive
• Indifference to poverty, hunger
• The choiceless billion plus

• Responsible
• Ignoring externalities
• Discounting the future

Boulding It is doubtful whether 200 years ago
the richest country had a per capita real income
more than five times that of the poorest. Today
the difference between per capita income for the
richest countries and for the poorest is of the
order of 1 to 50 rather than 1 to 5.
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The MDGs and the Zedillo Panel

• Domestic resource mobilization Importance of
  domestic policy
• Private capital flows Need for domestic
  initiatives
• Trade New round of WTO should be a development
  round liberalization of agriculture
  elimination of trade barriers
• International development cooperation
  humanitarian crises supply of public goods
  recovery from financial crises
• Systemic reforms Economic Security Council of
  the UN
• ODA 0.7 of GNP of developed countries

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Zedillo Panel on financing for development
estimates additional annual cost for achieving
2015 International Development Goals. This
approximates 50 billion dollars
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What a distorted world!

• Total official aid in 2003 - 68.5 billion (0.25
  of donor countries income)
• Worldwide military expenditures (estimated 2004)
  - 950 billion
• USA military expenditure - 466 billion
• Estimated increase in ODA for meeting MDGs - 50
  billion annually (Zedillo Panel)
• Post cold war transition swords to ploughshares
  a myth
• G-8 Summit, 2004 poverty is an unacceptable
  human condition which does not have to be
  inevitable

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Exploiting the synergies

• Effective mitigation policies would also further
  other sustainable development goals (economic,
  equity, environmental)
• Maximising co benefits of the mitigation
  strategy
• Implementing no regrets options
• The key linkages between mitigation and
  development are many - macroeconomic impacts,
  employment creation, inflation, trade

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The Developing Worlds Challenge

• There is a need to develop policies that will
  facilitate a transition in the developing
  countries, without compromising their growth and
  development.
• Develop political, social, technical and
  institutional capacity to encourage economic
  development while mitigating and adapting to
  climate change.
• Utilize science and technology to spur
  development while reducing emissions and the
  adverse effects of climate change.
• Need to redefine technology related priorities
  within a global framework.
• Meet the challenge of climate change, but with a
  differentiated approach.

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An Integrated approach to dealing with climate
change
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