Asian countries are divided over climate change, but all share a long-term interest in tackling the problem, the head of the region’s development bank has told the Financial Times.

Haruhiko Kuroda, president of the Asian Development Bank, said countries such as Bangladesh, Vietnam and Thailand, with large populations in low-lying coastal areas were at the greatest short-term risk, but problems such as sea level rise, extreme weather and water shortages could eventually hit the whole region.

The ABD could be one of the institutions through which that funding is channelled.

Mr Kuroda said that in the short run, Asian countries had “quite different views” about the urgency of measures to tackle climate change.

Some, including Bangladesh and the small island states of the Pacific, “naturally have greater interests at stake in avoiding severe climate change.”

Others, however, like India, feel that the cost of curbing greenhouse gas emissions “is at this stage quite high, while their per capita income is quite low, and they need to grow.”

Those countries fear that trying to limit emissions “might impede high growth, in particular in the short run.”

The ADB estimates that the region needs $240bn in the next 10 years for developing alternative sources of power such as solar and wind, as well as projects that maximise energy use to significantly cut the growth in carbon and greenhouse gas emissions.

All of the largest Asian economies are members of the ”G77 and China” group at the Copenhagen talks, which attempts to present a unified front. However, tension within the group has been very evident.

Countries that are most immediately threatened by climate change have been trying to raise the pressure on tbe talks to deliver strong and binding limits on carbon dioxide emissions, as well as large-scale long-term funding from rich countries.

China and India have been concerned to avoid burdening their economies with excessively onerous emissions curbs that could restrict their economic growth.

However, Mr kuroda said, if climate change becomes more serve, and water supplies are affected, then the impact would be felt everywhere in Asia. The ADB has calculated that production of the staple foods of rice and wheat could be cut by 20-40 per cent, which Mr Kuroda said would have a “devastating” effect.

“Even big countries like China, India and Pakistan, who are very dependent on irrigated water for agriculture, could be very much affected,” he said.

“From a long-term perspective, they have quite similar perspectives, although in the short run they may have quite different views.”

Mr Kuroda drew a distinction between any bilateral funding that the US might want to provide China, which would depend on the donor’s political priorities, and multilateral finance provided by international institutions.

American bilateral aid to China he said, was “up to the US to decide”, but multilateral aid was different.

“Multilateral aid is based on politically neutral criteria,” he said, “and per capita income in China is still fairly low.”

He added: “China is included as a lower middle income country. India’s per capita income is around $1,000, Chinese per capita income is around $3,000, and far below per capita income of for example Mexico or Brazil, or other developing countries that are middle income countries.”

The threats presented by climate change and the need to curb greenhouse gas emissions “are big challenges for developing countries, including China,” he said.

Mr Kuroda added that future funding should depend on China’s future economic development.

“China may continue to grow and at some stage may even graduate from financial assistance,” he said.

“The whole population in Bangladesh is vulnerable to climate change impacts.”

If not the world comes to its aid, Bangladesh says the liability of its agriculture sector to climate change could spell severe consequences for its millions of people, who stand to lose their main source of livelihood.

“As a poverty-stricken and densely populated country, we cannot cope with these challenges unless we have a proper financial and technological support from the developed world,” said Sabir Hassan Chowdhary, one of the delegates from Bangladesh to the Copenhagen climate talks.

Describing Bangladesh as the most vulnerable country in the world to the impacts of the global environmental phenomenon, delegates from the country are making passionate appeals for international help to prevent further deterioration of its food and livelihood security in the face of frequent droughts, erratic rainfall patterns, cyclones and floods.

The low-lying riverine South Asian country, one of the poorest in the world, lies between the foothills of the Himalayas and the Indian Ocean.

“Over the last few days in Copenhagen itself, a number of research organisations have declared us the most vulnerable country in the world to the impacts of climate change. Therefore we want the world to stand behind us to meet the challenges we are facing,” said Bangladesh’s environment and forest minister Hassan Mamud.

Some 130 heads of state are gathered at the United Nations Climate Conference in this capital. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has expressed optimism that a new climate change deal will be reached at today’s conclusion of the conference.

“We desperately need the world community to come forward and help us in adapting to the changing climate. And we would like to maintain that the adaptation funds, committed by the developed world, should be in the form of grants, not loans,” he said.

Mamud said 70 percent of such funds should be specifically allocated to the Least Developed Countries, including Bangladesh.

Data obtained by researchers working on climate change in the Himalayas show that “at least 20 glacial lakes in Nepal, some of them even 40 meters deep, can burst at any time. If these glacial lakes burst, the entire Bangladesh will get flooded,” told Mahmud. “That is why we say that we are more vulnerable than countries like Maldives.”

Bangladesh, “despite being not responsible for the global warming,” he said, has begun exploring measures aimed at mitigation like using compressed natural gas as fuel in public and private transport and harnessing solar energy.

Citing scientific studies, Ziaul Hoque Mukta, another member of the Bangladesh delegation, said in an interview with IPS that sea level will rise by 45 centimetres by 2050 while 10 to 15 percent of the land area of Bangladesh will be lost under water, displacing a large number of the more than 30 million people in the coastal nation.

“Poor landless people, who largely depend upon the coastal natural resources, will be at high risk,” he said, adding that coastal regions comprise 32 percent of the total area of Bangladesh and are home to about 35.1 million people. “So Bangladesh is highly vulnerable to sea-level rise.”

Based on data from the Bangladesh government, 20 percent of the country’s national income is generated by the agricultural sector, which employs approximately 60 percent of the total workforce of this south Asian country.

It is estimated, Mukta said, that 65 percent of the 250-square kilometre area in the coastal island of Kutubdia, 227 sq km in Bhola and 180 sq km in Swandip in Bangladesh “have already gone under water because of the sea- level rise.”

Bangladesh is self-sufficient in terms of agricultural production, “but climate change is going to make the food security and livelihood survival very difficult,” Nishat said. Bangladesh has to create a “robust industrial structure” if it wants to adapt to the impacts of climate change in future, he added.

“The erratic rainfalls, droughts and cyclones are already creating problems in the agriculture sector, which can worsen if required steps are not taken,” he said.

In June Dhaka received 440 millimetres of rain in a day, or more than double the average daily rainfall of 150 to 180 mm.

These environmental phenomena are putting the food security and security of livelihood at a huge risk, he added.

source : BBC
World leaders are locked in talks as they attempt to deliver a last-minute deal at the Copenhagen climate summit.
Confusion has dominated the final scheduled day as several draft texts were circulated on Friday afternoon.
The US, EU and China have not offered anything new in public, prompting fears that a meaningful deal to curb global emissions was slipping beyond reach.
US President Barack Obama held a second meeting with China’s premier in an effort to break the deadlock.
The talks are now expected to continue late into the night.
‘Time to act’
Earlier, a draft political agreement drawn up by a small group of countries was rejected during overnight discussions.
The EU did not raise its offer on cutting emissions from 20% to 30%, as some commentators had anticipated.
The bloc decided last year that it would adopt the higher target if there was a comprehensive global agreement on climate change here.
Many observers had expected – and hoped – that the EU would raise its targets for cutting emissions from 20% to 30% by 2020 (from 1990 levels).
BBC environment correspondent Richard Black said this was a clear indication that things were not proceeding towards the kind of deal that the EU had wanted.
Addressing the summit on Friday, President Obama said: “While the science of climate change is not in doubt, I think our ability to take collective action is in doubt right now, and it hangs in the balance.”
He said he had come to Copenhagen “not to talk, but to act”.
Unchecked, he said, climate change would pose “unacceptable risks” to international security, the world economy and the planet.
COPENHAGEN LATEST
A new draft agreement doesn’t mention: a legally-binding treaty; an explicit temperature target; a target date for finalising a deal; verification of emission curbs
US President Barack Obama and Chinese PM Wen Jiabao were said to take a “step forward” during a long bilateral meeting
The EU decides not to increase its pledge of a 20% cut in emissions by 2020 to 30%

Responding to the speech, Bolivia’s President Evo Morales commented: “President Obama said it was time to act. And if we are to act, then I have to ask you – starting from now, please fulfil the Kyoto Protocol.”
“This is a shambles,” said Antonio Hill of Oxfam, who has been intimately involved in preparations for this conference.
“Stitching it all back together is going to require a huge effort, whenever that is.”
China’s Premier Wen Jiabao told delegates: “To meet the climate change challenge, the international community must strengthen confidence, build consensus, make vigorous efforts and enhance co-operation.”
He added that in addressing climate change, the international community must not “turn a blind eye to historical responsibilities, per capita emissions and different levels of development”.
Correspondents say it is the US and China – the world’s two largest carbon emitters – that hold the key to striking an agreement. China has been criticised during the summit for not offering stronger carbon emissions targets and for resisting international monitoring of its emissions controls.
The US has received criticism for making its climate aid offer so late in the talks.
China’s ’special difficulty’ on climate
On Thursday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the US was prepared to help establish funding of $100bn a year for developing countries if a deal emerged that met US requirements.
The key US demand is “transparency” from China, seen as a must if the US Senate is to pass legislation controlling emissions.
As well as the leaders’ session, talks are scheduled on texts that sources say remain full of fundamental divisions.
One developing country negotiator told BBC News that the rejected draft political accord had arrived “as if from God”.
“It is very confusing, and developing countries are very disappointed because they’ve invested a lot of time in the documents they’re negotiating here,” said Martin Khor, executive director of the South Centre, a Geneva-based think-tank.
“People feel their time has been wasted,” he told BBC News.
Of the sticking points over the draft agreement, one appears to have been the absence of a commitment to a legally binding treaty, which many developing countries have been insisting on.
Finance has emerged as an issue more likely to make or break a deal than emissions pledges.
Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva received rousing applause for his speech. He told delegates: “We, the developing countries… when we think in money, we should not think that someone is paying us a favour.
“We should not think that someone is giving something that we are begging for, because the money that would be put on the table is the payment for greenhouse emissions released over two centuries by those countries that industrialised themselves first.”
President Lula added: “I would love to leave Copenhagen with the most perfect document in the world… I’m not sure if some angel or wise man will come down to this plenary and put in our minds the intelligence that we lacked up until now. I don’t know if that’s going to be possible.”
Earlier, Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono called for all states, both developed and developing, to be flexible about verification.
He indicated the possibility of setting up an international mechanism for monitoring emission cuts.

The United States laid out its position last month for the U.N. climate change talks in Copenhagen, pledging to cut emissions in a range of 17 percent by 2020 compared to 2005 levels, in line with legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives
The United States is making progress with China on outstanding issues overshadowing U.N. climate talks but cannot say whether a deal will result after President Barack Obama arrives in Copenhagen, officials said
Obama left Washington later on Thursday and is due to arrive in Denmark around 8:30 a.m. local time on Friday, U.S. officials told reporters on a conference call.

He will give a brief address at a plenary session with other world leaders and emphasize the renewed U.S. commitment to show leadership on global warming, but he is not expected to be more specific about Washington’s pledge to help provide funding for poor countries dealing with climate change.

That pledge is tied to monitoring, reporting and verification requirements by China and other big developing countries on their emissions curbs. China has resisted such requirements.

One U.S. official said progress was being made on that issue and others ahead of Obama’s arrival.

“We’re making progress on all of our outstanding issues with the Chinese. We have a good dialogue going and there are other parties as well,” the official said.

“There’s still a way to go on all the issues and there’s not much time left, so we certainly can’t predict at this point what the outcome of the conference will be,” he said.

Obama, who delayed a decision on whether to attend the talks until just weeks ago, is staking his credibility on the still elusive deal with ramifications for him at home and on the world stage.

Asked whether the president was concerned about returning empty-handed from Copenhagen for a second time this year after failing to secure the 2016 Olympics for Chicago, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said, “Coming back with an empty agreement would be far worse than coming back empty-handed.”

With his top domestic legislative priority of healthcare reform percolating in Washington, the president plans to stay in Copenhagen less than a day.

That may or may not be enough time to overcome persistent disagreements between developed and developing nations that have marred two weeks of talks, but Obama’s presence and contribution could be a potential deal-maker.

DEADLOCK, RISK

The United States tried to break a deadlock on Thursday, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announcing that Washington was prepared to help mobilize $100 billion a year by 2020 to assist poor nations dealing with climate change.

Gibbs said the United States still believed an agreement at Copenhagen was possible.

“We want something that works for both the international community but also that works for the United States. We think the elements are there to reach that agreement,” he said.

The United States has proposed cutting its greenhouse gas emissions in the range of 17 percent by 2020 compared with 2005 levels. That corresponds to a 3 percent reduction from 1990 levels, the baseline used by the European Union and others.

Obama is unlikely to propose a more aggressive emissions reduction target, which many countries have demanded. His goals are based on a bill that passed the House of Representatives but has yet to go through the Senate.

Environmentalists say Obama could turn the talks around by pledging his strong support for the Senate climate bill, which has a more aggressive 20 percent emissions reduction target, and by putting his full efforts into the issue once healthcare reform is finished.

An official on the conference call said the administration would make a “robust” effort to advance the bill next year.

Obama’s participation is fraught with risks. If the president, a Democrat, puts a more aggressive offer on the table in Copenhagen, he could face criticism from Republicans who charge the United States is going too far without getting enough in return from big developing economies such as India and China.

If he is more cautious and the talks end up faltering, he would be connected to that failure and his efforts to pass domestic climate change legislation could suffer along with his credibility among other international leaders.

“He’s sort of damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t, and (so) he might as well do the thing that’s right,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, urging Obama to push the talks forward.

US Proposals and views:
EMISSIONS CUTS

The United States has pledged to make the following cuts in its greenhouse gas emissions compared to a 2005 base year:

– an emissions reduction target “in the range of 17 percent” by 2020

– a 30 percent emissions reduction in 2025

– a 42 percent emissions reduction in 2030

Compared to 1990, the base year used by the European Union and many other developed countries, the figures correspond to:

– a 3 percent reduction in 2020

– an 18 percent reduction in 2025

– a 32 percent reduction in 2030

IN LINE WITH CONGRESS

The Obama administration’s hands have been tied in international negotiations because a domestic climate bill has not yet become law. The House of Representatives has passed its version, but a Senate bill is languishing.

The House passed a bill that sets a 17 percent reduction target for emissions by 2020 from 2005 levels. A Senate version is shooting for a 20 percent cut.

The White House said its 2020 targets would be flexible, based on the outcome of final legislation, but it chose the less ambitious 17 percent figure passed by the House to ensure its negotiating position would have lawmaker support.

White House officials conferred with lawmakers before laying out the U.S. plans.

OTHER PROPOSALS & FINANCING

The United States has made other proposals as part of the Copenhagen talks:

- On Wednesday, it pledged $1 billion as part of a $3.5 billion scheme for initial financing toward slowing deforestation.

- On Monday, it pledged to contribute $85 million to a $350 million multinational fund aimed at speeding up renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies in poor countries.

- The United States has said it will pay its fair share to help poor nations deal with climate change. It will contribute about $1.2 billion this year, but has not made a concrete proposal for the following years.