Satu pertiga Bangladesh berisiko tenggelam

DHAKA: Peningkatan paras laut setinggi satu meter akan menenggelamkan satu pertiga daripada Bangladesh dan menyebabkan berjuta-berjuta rakyat kehilangan tempat tinggal, kata pegawai kanan kerajaan.

Fakhruddin Ahmed, yang bercakap pada persidangan perubahan cuaca di Pertubuhan Bangsa-Bangsa Bersatu (PBB) di New York, menggesa negara kaya supaya membantu negara miskin menangani kepanasan global.

“Hari ini kita berdepan dengan realiti sukar fenomena perubahan suhu bukan lagi mitos dan kesannya tidak lagi sekadar agakan. Saya bercakap bagi pihak Bangladesh dan ramai lagi yang bakal berdepan bencana besar dengan peningkatan keganasan dan aliran cuaca yang tidak dapat dijangka

“Peningkatan paras laut setinggi satu meter akan menenggelamkan satu pertiga daripada keseluruhan kawasan Bangladesh yang akan menjejaskan 25 hingga 30 juta penduduk,” agensi berita BSS memetik Fakhruddin sebagai berkata.

Kawasan rendah Bangladesh mempunyai penduduk seramai 144 juta, 40 peratus daripadanya memperoleh pendapatan tidak sampai satu dolar sehari.

“Negara membangun tidak mampu menanggung kos peningkatan teknologi ekonomi mereka. Rejim selepas Kyoto perlu menubuhkan tabungan baru. Ia mesti memastikan pemindahan teknologi ini kepada negara seperti Bangladesh,” katanya.

Bangladesh diletakkan dalam undang-undang darurat sejak Januari lalu, apabila kerajaan disokong tentera mengambil alih kuasa sehari selepas pilihan raya dibatalkan kerana dakwaan penipuan undi. –Agensi

KL syor negara maju bantu atasi krisis iklim

Oleh Azhar Abu Samah di New York

MALAYSIA semalam mencadangkan satu tabung baru dengan dana yang lebih besar diwujudkan Pertubuhan Bangsa-Bangsa Bersatu (PBB) bagi membantu negara membangun mengatasi masalah perubahan iklim dengan lebih berkesan.

Serentak itu, Malaysia juga mahu negara maju yang sedang dan sudah mendapat manfaat daripada pelaburan atau kegiatan mereka di negara membangun, lebih aktif membantu meningkatkan perlindungan di negara membangun daripada perubahan cuaca.

Menteri Luar, Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar, yang mewakili Perdana Menteri, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi pada mesyuarat peringkat tinggi tidak formal mengenai perubahan iklim anjuran PBB, berkata negara maju mesti komited menawarkan pembiayaan dan teknologi kepada negara membangun bagi membentuk satu rejim iklim yang berkesan selepas Protokol Kyoto berakhir pada 2012.
"Negara maju perlu melakukan lebih usaha untuk menangani isu ini, terutama dari segi peruntukan pembiayaan kerana berdasarkan sejarah, negara maju banyak melepaskan gas rumah hijau dan mempunyai lebih kemampuan,” katanya selepas menghadiri mesyuarat itu, di sini, semalam.

Beliau berharap tabung penyesuaian yang kini diusahakan PBB mengikut Protokol Kyoto dapat beroperasi lebih awal dan pada masa sama mahu mahu dana alam sekitar sedunia yang ada ketika ini lebih mudah diperoleh negara anggota yang memerlukannya.

Katanya, banyak dana yang ditubuhkan untuk tujuan penjagaan alam sekitar menetapkan syarat yang sukar dipenuhi negara membangun, sekali gus menghalang usaha ke arah menangani perubahan iklim.

Protokol Kyoto diasaskan pada Konvensyen Rangka Kerja PBB Mengenai Perubahan Iklim dan menetapkan sasaran dan jadual pengurangan pelepasan gas rumah hijau wajib dipatuhi oleh negara perindustrian. Amerika Syarikat tidak memeterai protokol ini.

Tabung penyesuaian pula ditubuhkan bagi membiayai projek dan program penyesuaian konkrit di negara membangun yang menandatangani Protokol Kyoto.

Syed Hamid berkata, Malaysia sudah mengambil langkah terbaik untuk menangani masalah perubahan cuaca pada masa kini dan akan datang.

"Mengikut rancangan pembangunan lima tahun, Malaysia sudah memperuntukkan sejumlah besar wang untuk melakukan langkah pencegahan bagi mengurangkan kesan kerosakan alam sekitar pada peringkat sumbernya, meningkatkan usaha pemuliharaan dan menguruskan sumber alam semula jadi secara mapan," katanya.

Sementara itu, lebih 70 pemimpin negara maju dan membangun yang menyertai mesyuarat peringkat tinggi itu mahu usaha menangani masalah perubahan suhu dunia dilakukan melalui tindakan bersama iaitu Rangka Kerja Pelbagai Hala Tunggal dan sebarang keputusan hanya boleh dibuat Konvensyen Rangka Kerja PBB Mengenai Perubahan Iklim (UNFCCC).

Perubahan iklim agenda utama

Daripada Azhar Abu Samah Di New York

PERUBAHAN iklim akan menjadi agenda utama ketua negara dan pemimpin dunia pada Perhimpunan Agung Pertubuhan Bangsa-Bangsa Bersatu (PBB) ke-62 bermula minggu ini, sekali gus membuka jalan untuk perbincangan lebih serius semua 192 negara anggota badan dunia itu bagi mengatasi masalah sejagat ini.

Selain tidak mengetepikan isu keselamatan dan politik antarabangsa untuk dibincangkan, antaranya Kosovo, kemudahan nuklear Iran, isu Palestin, Myanmar, Lubnan dan menghantar pasukan pengaman ke Darfur, Sudan, perhimpunan PBB kali ini sudah mendapat gambaran awal bahawa pemimpin dunia sudah bersedia untuk mengatasi masalah ketidaktentuan iklim dunia, termasuk merangka langkah tambahan bagi menguatkan lagi komitmen semua negara anggota menjayakannya.

Menteri Luar, Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar, berkata kesan perubahan iklim dunia ketika ini begitu ketara, termasuk peningkatan suhu dunia dan cuaca tidak menentu yang membawa kepada banjir dan ribut kuat serta memberi kesan langsung kepada penduduk dunia

"Sudah sampai masa pemimpin dunia berkongsi kepakaran dan sumber, termasuk menyediakan kewangan bagi mengatasi masalah ini kerana ia membawa bahaya kepada kita," katanya sambil menambah, Malaysia turut merasai kesan perubahan iklim dunia apabila Johor dilanda banjir terburuk tidak lama lalu.

Bercakap kepada wartawan di sini semalam, Syed Hamid berkata, beliau akan mengambil bahagian pada majlis pembukaan mesyuarat peringkat tinggi perubahan iklim di PBB hari ini dengan membawa usul betapa penting PBB mempunyai sumber kewangan yang kukuh untuk menguruskan soal perubahan iklim dunia.

"Isu ini akan mencuri tumpuan dalam tempoh dua hingga tiga hari PBB bersidang, termasuk ketika perbahasan umum," katanya sambil menambah Perdana Menteri, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi yang akan berucap pada 28 September turut menyentuh isu sama, termasuk pendekatan Islam Hadhari.

Beliau berkata, walaupun Protokol Kyoto yang akan berakhir pada 2012 sudah mengambil tindakan mengurangkan kesan pengeluaran gas rumah hijau, namun pemimpin dunia perlu merangka satu mekanisme baru bagi memperlihatkan tindakan positif untuk memelihara kepentingan generasi akan datang.

Difahamkan, kesepakatan yang dicapai pemimpin dunia mengenai isu perubahan iklim dunia pada perhimpunan agung kali ini akan membuka ruang kepada masyarakat antarabangsa memulakan rundingan bagi perjanjian baru ketika berlangsungnya persidangan mengenai perubahan cuaca dunia di Bali, Indonesia pada Disember ini.

World Leaders Urge Action on Climate Change

World leaders share their views and fears about climate change, but are split on what to do about it
By David Biello

A parade of world leaders from heads of state to corporate chiefs urged action on climate change at the largest summit on the issue ever organized. "The time for doubt has passed," said U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in his opening remarks at the event held Monday at the United Nations. "National action must be at the center of our response to climate change—with industrialized countries taking the lead."

Not all the world's industrialized countries saw it that way, even those who agree global warming is a threat that needs to be stopped. "The core principle of Canada's approach to climate change is balance," Prime Minister Stephen Harper said during his remarks to the conference, stressing that action on climate change should not slow economic activity. "We are balancing environmental protections with economic growth."


Harper is set to join President Bush at a U.S.-led meeting of the 16 largest emitters of greenhouse gases scheduled to be held later this week in Washington, D.C. "The U.S. is fully committed to climate adaptation," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in an address to the 150 participants on hand at the U.N. event. This represents a public acknowledgement by the Bush administration that global warming is a problem but leaves unclear how exactly the administration hopes to contribute to efforts to solve it other than by helping cope with its impacts.

National representatives discussed such impacts, stressing the urgency for action to slow them in their remarks to attendees during one of four concurrent sessions on curbing greenhouse emissions, adapting to climate change, technological solutions, and how to pay for such changes. Paraguay, for example, is experiencing a crippling drought that has led to the worst forest fires in its recorded history, whereas Kenya's recent drought deprived the country of three quarters of its electricity supply. Diseases like Chikungunya fever, which cripple patients with joint pain, have begun to appear in new areas, such as the Indian Ocean island nation of Mauritius.

And with Arctic ice cover shrinking more than ever this past summer, the Inuit of the northern circumpolar region say their way of life is disappearing. "We are told to adapt," Sheila Watt-Cloutier, chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, said during her remarks on adaptation. "I find it deeply frustrating to be speaking on the necessary theme of adaptation and resilience rather than speaking on how to reverse the effects of climate change."

Although there was disagreement on exactly what should be done, there appeared to be a consensus that action should be taken to avert a 2-degree Celsius (3.6-degree Fahrenheit) rise in average global temperatures and to cut emissions of greenhouse gases in half by 2050. "By the middle of this century, we need to at least halve global emissions," German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the conferees.

That translates to stabilizing greenhouse gas levels at roughly 450 parts per million (ppm), according to Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Already, atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas, are approaching 400 ppm, and at least the amount of warming caused by that level is likely by century's end. Therefore, emissions would need to peak then begin to decline in short order—by 2015—in order to reach the 2050 goal.

The U.N.'s Hot Air on Climate Change

Tuesday, Sep. 25, 2007 By BRYAN WALSH United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon (left) speaks at the United Nations during a High Level event on Climate Change.
(l. to r.): Don Emmert / AFP / Getty; AP
Article ToolsPrintEmailSphereAddThisRSS Early in Monday's high-level United Nations meeting on climate change, officials proudly told reporters that the summit, which brought together leaders and ministers from over 150 nations to discuss global warming, would be carbon neutral. The greenhouse-gas effect of the 5,000 tons of carbon dioxide produced to hold the meeting and to fly U.N. staff and participants to New York would be offset by a $15,800 investment in a small-scale hydroelectric project in Honduras. Thus, in terms of its ecological impact on the world's climate, it would be as if the summit had never happened at all.

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It's hard not to conclude that the summit's political effect may be just as nonexistent. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon gave what was by his mild-mannered standards an impassioned speech calling for rapid action on climate change, and world leader after world leader rose to the lectern to emphasize the danger of global warming. "Today, the time for doubt has passed," Ban said in his opening address. "The time for action is now."

But at the end of the one-day session, the delegates hadn't come much closer to achieving the next meaningful step in the battle against climate change: negotiating a more complete successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires at the end of 2012. Though political awareness of the need to grapple with climate change was clearly at an all-time high — scores of national leaders don't suddenly convene at the U.N. without a decent reason — the global political will to actually do something still seems lacking. It's now 20 years since the issue of climate change was first raised in the U.N.'s General Assembly chamber by the island nation of Malta, 15 years since the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and 10 since after the Kyoto Protocol was drafted — and many governments speak as if they'd just discovered global warming. Other concerns remain more pressing, including the war in Iraq — a fact that was made apparent when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahadinejad (who skipped the climate meeting) gave his speech at Columbia University in the afternoon, drawing crowds of delegates around nearby televisions. The essential deadlock that has held up stronger international action on climate change — striking an acceptable balance of responsibilities between developed and developing countries — remains unbroken, and there was little evidence that would change before the next major U.N. climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, at the end of the year.

That was in no small part due to the absence of one national leader in particular: U.S. President George W. Bush, who chose not to address the U.N. meeting, though he did attend a dinner for leaders at Ban's request. (Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke instead, emphasizing the importance of investment in clean energy technologies, over specific limits for greenhouse gases.) But Bush will be at a climate change summit of his own at the end of the week. The White House invited major carbon emitters — including developing giants China and India — to Washington to discuss long-term goals on climate action. Both U.N. and Administration officials insist the two summits would be complementary, not competitive, but since the White House continues to insist on mostly voluntary action to cut carbon emissions, and the U.N. process is based on Kyoto-style mandatory cuts, contradiction seems inevitable. "People are concerned because [the White House] does have a history of going its own way," Gro Harlem Brundtland, a U.N. special envoy on climate change, told TIME. "But the U.N. process is absolutely the way we have to go. Climate change affects every nation."

But even if President Bush's meeting is meant to derail the U.N. conference — and the very fact of the summit raises hopes that the long-time climate skeptic may be thawing — the U.N. process could easily stall on its own. The Kyoto Protocol required emission cuts from developed countries that ratified the treaty, but not from developing countries, including fast-growing emitters like India and China. That double standard was the stated reason the U.S. refused to ratify Kyoto, and it needs to be fixed in the next round of climate negotiations. But there was little said in New York Monday to indicate that a solution would be found soon. Developing countries insist with much justification that they can't be expected to constrain their growing economies to slow carbon emissions, but it's difficult to see how citizens in developed countries — and not just in the SUV-loving United States — will accept strict limits while their economic competitors in India and China are allowed free rein. Nor is there much time to figure it out. "We only have two years to reach an agreement on post-Kyoto, and only three years to prepare the ground," says Achim Steiner, the executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme. "It's down to the wire."

Beating the diplomatic buzzer will require innovation, and there were glimpses of the necessary creativity on Monday. Representatives from the Carbon Disclosure Project, a non-profit connected to hundreds of institutional investors controlling $41 trillion in assets, reported that major corporations have begun to increasingly act on climate change — outpacing many governments. Indonesia, the third-biggest carbon emitter after the U.S. and China, hosted a side meeting of rainforest nations, where they called for forest protections to be a larger part of Kyoto's successor agreement when negotiations start in Bali. (Deforestation is responsible roughly 20% of global carbon emissions.) "There is no better chance than in Bali to act decisively," Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told delegates at the close of the summit.

But the most inspiring words came from a prominent American politician who did show up at the U.N.: California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The green-hued Republican, who backed a 2006 California law to reduce state greenhouse gas emissions 25% by 2020 — exactly the sort of mandatory cut President Bush refuses to consider — told delegates that the time for debate was finished. "The consequences of global climate change are so pressing, it doesn't matter who was responsible for the past," he said. "What matters is who is answerable for the future. And that is all of us." Pointing to California's success in creating two vital new industries — computers and biotech — and the entrepreneurial energy unleashed in the rapidly growing developing world, Schwarzenegger contended that humanity could innovate its way out of the climate change deadlock. That might be a bit simplistic, but when Schwarzenegger called for "action, action, action, action" it was hard to argue with him.

By : yuhazlinda yusof