A liability framework for adaptation funds should be set up by linking payments with emissions.
Thousands of delegates are deliberating this week on climate change at Poznan, in Poland. While spectacular outcomes are not expected, Poznan will prepare the ground for a change in climate negotiations. From 1991 onwards, these have been focused on reducing green house gases (GHG), ie, on “mitigation”. Now the focus may have to switch to “adaptation” as well.
The questions so far have been: How did GHG accumulation take place, who emitted how much and what to do to reduce them, what are differentiated responsibilities, and can per capita emission be the criterion to decide permissible emission levels? In the meantime, the accumulated GHGs are already having effect. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says, “Even the most stringent mitigation efforts cannot avoid further impacts of climate change in the next few decades, which makes adapting to climate change essential.”
So it is time to move on to the next series of questions: What impact is caused, who will suffer, and who should pay for this? How do we share the burden of suffering, reduce vulnerabilities and innovate on ways to deal with adaptation through technologies, infrastructure, knowledge-sharing and financing? The calls for climate justice are getting louder at each meeting. But climate justice is not just about equal access to global environmental space, it is also about compensating the victims.
In climate change parlance, reduction of emissions is referred to as mitigation, and matters relating to climate impact and response to the impact as adaptation — even though it may not be very easy to adapt, and may involve losses that will not be compensated.
Unlike mitigation, which is centred on large emitting sectors and large countries, adaptation is quite the opposite. The small and poor are most vulnerable. Thus, this debate needs to connect international, national, sub-national and village-level issues. Deeper understanding is required to appreciate the plights of inhabitants of arid zones, fishing villages, terrace farmers in the hills and the urban poor. Climate and poverty connections are strong. The lack of equity is obvious when nearly 500 million who have not used electricity or petroleum products in India will suffer without having a clue about what has hit them and why.
Climate disasters include such events as heat waves, drought, bush fires, tropical and extra-tropical cyclones, tornadoes, hailstorms, floods and storm surges. In addition to floods, cyclones and storms, millions are also affected by drought and high winds that damage crops and disrupt lives, and these have repercussions throughout the rural economy. Recent floods, storms and drought events have demonstrated the extreme vulnerability of individuals and governments in developing countries, who already face many other challenges relating to poverty and marginalisation.
What is involved in adaptation? Adaptation is not cost-less, as the name might suggest. Various estimates by different agencies differ sharply, with the figures ranging between $50 billion and a trillion dollars worldwide. An adaptation programme has four components: building infrastructure, capacity building through extension work to reach out to people, extending insurance cover for life, health, property and natural calamities like storms, and expanding safety nets such as for health care or food distribution through public distribution systems, as required.
The infrastructure needed for all this includes constructing disaster shelters, warning systems, embankments on the coast and rivers, retaining walls in the mountains (for protection against landslides) and strengthening of civil infrastructure such as dams, roads, bridges, flyovers and buildings as well as expanding drainage and water supply systems. Capacity building, training and awareness programmes are needed for fishermen, farmers, women and stakeholders for various measures such as changing fishing practices, growing alternatives crops, rainwater harvesting and watershed management.
Unfortunately, even while a series of “one in hundred years”, “never-before” calamities occurs, ranging from cloudbursts of up to a metre of rain in 24 hours and several drought years in a row to unprecedented storms, cyclones and floods that jeopardise lives in rural and urban areas, it is difficult to get compensation.
Adaptation in climate negotiations is still viewed as a secondary issue, and has not received the level of attention it deserves. This is evident from the fact that there are as yet no legally binding obligations to finance it, and the existing adaptation funds are pitifully small. New modalities for financing are needed for sharing the burden of risk, impact, vulnerability and adaptation. The polluter-pays framework is conveniently ignored by resorting to ad hoc aid. It is even worse to collect adaptation funds by deducting 2 per cent from the carbon credits earned by the developing countries, as is the current practice. The principle is wrong from a social justice point of view and the collected amount is so pitiful as to be not worth the paperwork involved. A liability framework could be set up by linking payments with emissions by a country. Even a dollar per tonne charge could collect $40 billion, as nearly 40 billion tonnes are emitted every year. Once the system is in place, this could be increased gradually.
The donor-dependent framework for adaptation funds has demonstrated that it is politically unlikely that the developed countries will voluntarily provide the tens of billions of dollars needed for adaptation in the world’s poorest countries. The system of voluntary pledge needs to be replaced by a more consistent, predictable and reliable mechanism, one that is legally binding. This could be done by linking contributions with emissions, thereby linking to a ‘polluter-pays’ or liability paradigm. Unless one has to pay for emitting, no efforts will be made to reduce emissions either.
Sharing the burden of climate risks imposed on the poor should be on the agenda, through a specific adaptation protocol linked to the UN Framework Conversion on Climate Change. Perhaps a specific protocol is needed, like the Kyoto Protocol for mitigation. Such a protocol, if developed, should give special consideration to see that the poor, especially women, are the beneficiaries. There are important moral and political imperatives for awarding adaptation equal status with mitigation in meetings on climate change. The initiative for this will have to come from the developing countries.
Dr Parikh is Executive Director of Integrated Research and Action for Development (IRADe). She is a member of Prime Minister’s Advisory Council for Climate Change. The views expressed are personal. jparikh@irade.org
