Hoping for stronger commitment

By lan Williams

MUCH better than nothing, but not nearly enough, was the Pacific reaction to negotiation of an International Con vention on Climate Change in New York. The Convention will be the centrepiece of the “Earth Summit” the United Nations Conference on Environ ment and Development in Rio this month, and the most tangible achieve ment of a jamboree that will bring together more people than the popu lation of some Pacific states.

The Convention is, depending on who is speaking, a breakthrough, because for the first time the United States has officially accepted the real possibility of global warming; or a sell-out, because the price exacted by Washington was that there should be no concrete commit ments to reduce emissions of the carbon dioxide that causes the effect.

One thing that almost everbody ayjfed on was the effect that the 37 members <*f the Alliance of Small Island Strifes had on negotiations, ensuring that the survival of whole nations was not totally ignored by the delegates of larger countries. After the acceptance of the compromise, president Bush, who has curtailed his overseas trips in deference to domestic criticism during the election v ear, announced that he would be going o Rio, thereby giving the US seal of ipproval.

Lance Laack from the Marshall islands mission to the UN summed it up, ‘We had hoped for a stronger commit nent and stronger insurance provisions, fhc original draft had a date of 2000 by vhich to stabilize emissions, and we felt hat even that was too late. But the igreed text dropped even that. On the >ther hand, we’re happy that there was Convention, and we are trying to look ,n it as the most that was politically tossible a first step. After all we are •robably the country most likely to be ffected first by sea level rise.”

Vanuatu’s Robert Van Lierop, the hairman of AOSIS told PIM “I don’t iiink we could have gotten any better ecause the commitment to specific ommitments was just not there in the Jnited States, and without them, there no point having a convention”. He was Iso worried that what financing there 'as would be through the World Bank’s fiobal Environment Facility which is ‘stricted to projects with a global npact. “Most small islands are the front ne states on this issue. We need finance •r immediate response measures to the fects of global w'arming we don’t roduce greenhouse gases in any big

way!” he pointed out.

Nonetheless, he says “The overall package is that the convention contains some very important things for small island developing countries it’s not the most desirable package, but it is the achievable one”.

He adds “The convention sets in train a process, that can be added to, and evolve later into what is absolutely necessary”.

Paul Hohnen, Greenpeace’s global warming expert, lamented the fickleness of developed world attention, “Despite our efforts, we still get a greater response when our magazine has a furry animal on its cover than when it has a picture of hurricane damage.”

Malaysia, which has been vociferous in its resentment of the way the industrial ised world has tried to evade its respon sibilities, refused to agree with the compromise, saying that it was funda mentally flawed, “and virtually dictated on a take it or leave it basis” by the “so called new international order”.

That bitterness was echoed by the coalition of environmental groups who charged that “coal and oil interests, representing only a small sector of world industry, have used their wealth and power to distort science and blackmail governments . . . future generations will have to pay the price”.

The developing countries recognize the importance of returning to their 1990 level of emissions of greenhouse gases by the end of the century. It makes no provision for what happens after that and many scientists think that the 1990 level was already far too high. It does however provide for at least two reviews before 2000 of the commitments which could tighten up controls.

The developing countries agree to co operate in policies to limit emissions and to enhance greenhouse “sinks”, like tropical forests, which absorb carbon dioxide. In return developed countries shall provide new and additional financial resources to meet the agreed full costs incurred by the developing countries in complying with their obli gations” and to provide financial re sources including for the transfer of technology” to meet the costs incurred.

One small concession won by the developing countries was that they would be represented on the Global Environment Facility instead of, as at present, decisions being taken only by donor countries and agencies.

As a foretaste of what is to come for Pacific Islands, PIM was shown a copy of a draft study on the effect of global warming on the Marshall Islands, co

ordinated by SPREP and carried out by the Marshallese government, it suggests that it would be economically impossible to try to protect many outlying islands and atolls against sea level rise. The islands’ fresh water supply would be badly affected by the rise in sea level contracting the aquifers and local agri culture would become increasingly diffi cult. Even if the capital were available, the materials to build sea wall protection are not readily available on the islands.

The implications of overcrowding and progressive retreat from islands would threaten the whole system of tenure on which the social structure rests.

Indeed, in the worst case scenario of one metre rise over 100 years, it suggests that “retreat” abandonment of the islands is the only realistic option.

Even some of the interim solutions a shift from agriculture to mariculture, for example, is threatened by another phenomenon suggested by a Greenpeace report coral bleaching. Corals are very sensitive to small increases in water temperatures, and the destruction of reefs poses big dangers for the industry and the very physical structure of many islands.

The prospects of “cultural erosion” followed by very real threats to sover eignty, for the Marshalls and for other Pacific states should not be dismissed as mere doomsday talk. The relative slow ness of the changes gives some time for remedial measures in the islands them selves, but the main remedy is in the hands of the developed world.

Will the citizens of the US give up cheap petrol and gas-guzzling cars to save the cultures and livelihoods of peoples thousands of miles away? Rio will be for show. The real beginning took place in New York with the convention and there is a lot of work to be done to persuade the US and its leaders.