Realizing the inadequacy of the protocol, the world in 2007 conceived to fill the shortfall through Bali Action Plan (BAP). BAP followed a two-track approach to address the issue: The first concentrated on more ambitious targets from annex I party; and the second focused on what has been called Long-Term Cooperative Action (LCA). The purpose of LCA remained more encompassing in that it aspired to bring all countries of the world on board irrespective of whether developed or developing or the signatory of KP or its abstainer.
UNRESOLVED DEBATES
The world was supposed to seal a deal over both tracks in Copenhagen (COP15) in 2009. However, debacle persisted even in COP 16 held one year later in Cancun. The desperate world is now aiming for an agreement at COP 17 scheduled in Durban, in December 2011. The world has met many times in between both formally and informally so as to do homework on the matter, the last being in Panama between October 1-7 this year. It may, however, be noted that controversies persisted on a number of issues including mitigation and adaptation themes and the subsidiary agendas complementing those such as ‘technology transfer’ and ‘finance’.
BONE OF CONTENTION
While many countries have ceded for a 2 degree Celsius rise in global temperature (compared to the preindustrial era), some countries such as the Small Island States are still reluctant to give up their position. They posit that the world cannot afford to cross the limit of 1.5 degrees: A possible safe limit indicated by science. In any case, countries such as the US and emerging economies such as China and India are ‘locking their horns’. While the former group insists on virtual uniformity in future emissions, the later emphasize that the developed world should essentially take the major burden on emission reduction owing to their ‘historical responsibility’.
Controversies are rife also in ‘financing’. Though an agreement was reached in Cancun for establishing Green Climate Fund under the direct control of UNFCCC, there is skepticism among the developing world that the developed counterparts would really allow to make it functionally happen. The current environment of international debt crisis is feared to create further adversities. Thus, allocation of a sum of 100 billion to finance climate change initiatives in developing countries by 2020, a sum promised during Cancun, is seen as an ‘empty promise’ on the part of developed world.
The desperate world is aiming for an agreement at COP 17 scheduled in Durban, in December 2011. It may, however, be noted that controversies persist on a number of issues including mitigation and adaptation themes and the subsidiary agendas complementing those such as ‘technology transfer’ and ‘finance’.
Large-scale controversy also lies on dividing this indicative sum into mitigation and adaptation. While the developing world would insist on secured funding through government financing, the developed counterparts would like put the burden on the market/ private sector. The US is once again shirking away from the Kyoto Protocol by saying that ‘condition is not ripe’ for it. Complexities are exacerbated by the fact that Japan, Canada and Russia, the signatory of the KP, have now decided to pull out. Developing countries, which thus far had a united voice, have now split. While the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS) wants a comprehensive agreement under the convention, India and China, in particular, are not supportive of the idea for fear that this might force them as well to contribute toward emission reduction. These are some of the complicated issues, which lend to an inference that chances of sealing a deal in Durban are rather slim.
NEPAL’S GROUND REALITY
The country has drawn its National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) with due realization that its role in climate adaptation is much more urgent and meaningful compared to mitigation. However, confusion abounds in terms of implementing the same. While NAPA enshrines decentralized philosophy as a modus operandi for intervention, several factors tend to impede the process.
Six sectoral ministries are assigned individually to lead the nine ‘Combined Profiles’ each of which seriously lack knowledge regarding intervention. Their culture of working in isolation does not probably sit well with the idea of promoting community-based adaptation. Communities at the local level face a number of concomitant climate-induced problems such as loss of source of water, flood, drought and health hazards. This obviously would actually call for a ‘fusion’ between all intervening agencies at the local level. Their technocratic mode of intervention in tight compartment of their discipline would thus be clearly irrelevant.
NAPA’s idea of decentralized work philosophy, though admirable, can actually be a riddle with holes. Ministry of Local Development (MLD), the central level government agency responsible for local development, is virtually out of scene in NAPA implementation. The role of District Development Committee (DDC) is dubious in the sense that a parallel District Coordination Committee constituted at the district level is conceived to implement the program. It is difficult to see how the sectoral ministries with work culture of working in isolation can implement the climate change adaption activities that, in fact, need a ‘fusion’ on the part of all relevant agencies at the local level. Though The Local Adaptation Programme (LAPA) was supposed to find some navigational direction, the initiative is characterized by a number of problems. Lack of ownership on part of the government agencies combined with too dispersed location of the piloted sites is among the major incumbent limitations.
Looking at the process and outcome of climate change negotiation so far, two things are obvious. First, the chances of agreement are less likely at least in the foreseeable future. Even if it did happen, given the entrenched international power politics in the negotiation, there is little that Nepal’s individual efforts can do to influence the actual outcome. In this backdrop, it would, instead, be worthwhile to concentrate at internal state of affairs regarding how the money could best be used when the international climate change negotiations start yielding some fruit.
This would require a cautious piloting at the local level, preferable at small catchments or sub-watershed. Devising appropriate form of institutional arrangements should be at the heart of piloting. Only some normatic guidelines may be stipulated here regarding essentials principles to be embodied by the proposed piloting as elaborate prescription needs a lot for space. For example, it must be i) government-owned than donor agency-owned ii) decentralized focused than centrally sponsored iii) experiential learning-based than pure action-based iv) empowerment focused than mechanistic intervention v) building on local knowledge than basing solely on expert’s knowledge.
It may be emphasized that flow of money without the knowledge of structure and process to use it may be unhelpful at best and dangerous at worst. So the best thing to do at this stage is to put our efforts on climate change negotiation in the backburner and concentrate, instead, immediately on figuring out required process and structure by way of cautious piloting. This is probably the biggest lesson we have learnt from our world-renowned community forestry system where we failed to accomplish much until we were prepared to go for piloting in an action learning mode in late eighties and early nineties.
The writer is Joint Secretary at Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation
baraljc@yahoo.com
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