Climate Change

THE Kyoto Protocol of 1997, linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, promised much but failed to deliver because of the intransigence of leading polluters such as the United States and, initially, Australia. Now it is said that a `landmark agreement` on climate change was reached on Sunday at a UN-sponsored conference in Durban, South Africa. While this paper welcomes a concurrence which possibly suggests a significant step forward, there is little room for outright jubilation. As leading environmentalists point out, there are far too many loopholes in the `Durban Platform` to ensure a uniform regulatory policy. Participating countries have pledged to abide by their commitments to carbon emissions but the level of cuts they announce remains, quite arbitrarily it should be said, up to their own choosing. On the face of it this does not seem equitable, especially for developing countries that account for a minute fraction of global warming but have to pay the heaviest costs in the face of erratic weather in Asia andAfrica. Two, any `voluntary` reductions in emissions have been given a huge breather with a lengthy 2020 cut-off point.

The time to act is now and words alone will not do.

All stakeholders need to evolve a consensus that puts global environmental security before personal interests.

No corner of the earth, be it Southeast Asia, Pakistan or North and South America, has been spared in recent years from the torments of climate change. The poorest of the poor are hardest hit and will continue to suffer as long as business continues as usual. Glaciers and the polar caps are melting, and regions across the world are seeing alarming patterns of unusual droughts and flooding. But it need not be all doom and gloom. One of the major positives coming out of the Durban Platform is the pledge that a governing body will be set up to distribute `tens of billions of dollars` to poor countries in the fight against climate change.

How it all pans out remains to be seen but it is hoped that the world`s leading powers will take the sensible route.