FARMER'S DIARY: Commitment needed for climate change

I have received over 60 e-mails from a number of persons that attended the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (CoP 17), which ended on Friday, December 9, 2011, in Durban, South Africa. If I do not share the content of some e-mails, their commendable efforts will have been in vain.

This important meeting discussed an issue that is bound to affect Africa the most but about which its citizens can do little on their own to offset. Yet not even is Africa to be held accountable for its cause!

According to a publication from Panos, Just a Lot of Hot Air?, climate change, or global warming, was caused by the industrialised countries’ massive combustion of fossil fuels—coal, oil and gas—in their industries, which emitted enormous quantities of greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide—into the atmosphere.

The concentrations of these gases have risen much faster than natural processes can remove them. (One such natural process is that plants take in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen. But now there is far more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than the available plants can take in.)

“Carbon dioxide is critical for maintaining the temperature in which life flourishes,” the book says. “Released into the atmosphere, carbon dioxide remains there for around 100 years, causing the atmosphere to retain more of the infrared heat radiated from the earth’s surface, thus leading to a gradual rise in temperature.” Methane and nitrous oxide are smaller in volume but they are even more potent.

Make agriculture difficult
All this has resulted in the world heating up faster—temperatures are rising more quickly now and are feared to rise by two degrees Celsius soon if emission of greenhouse gases is not checked. In some parts of the world, like in Africa, the rise in temperature and reduced water supplies will make agriculture difficult. The ice in the Arctic zone is said to be gradually melting and sending more water into the oceans thus threatening many island states with submersion and extinction.

It is also feared that low-lying countries like Egypt are at risk. We are bound to experience abnormal weather patterns like severe droughts and floods—these are no catalysts for successful farming. So, most of the deliberations in Durban were about persuading the industrialised countries to reduce their use of fossil fuels, and to provide funding for efforts to mitigate climate change in the disadvantaged countries.

Trouble is that most of the industrialised countries fear that reducing the use of fossil fuels in their industries will cripple their economies. Some scientists in these countries have disputed the existence of climate change and have called it a great hoax. There is also the argument that the developing countries themselves are oil producers or importers and are emitting the same greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as well as destroying forests that would serve to absorb the gases.

Bishop Geoff Davies, representing Southern African Faith Communities Environment Institute, told the Durban conference that the rich countries’ behaviour is comparable with apartheid. “Here, we are on South African soil where apartheid was defeated. Yet we are seeing global apartheid. Rich countries are keeping wealth and power for themselves. It is immoral for nations to say they will go on emitting dangerous gases. Scientists say that African temperatures will increase twice the global average. We worship a creator God and we are in the process of destroying that creation.”

Speaking on behalf of all African countries, Mr Tosi Mpanu Mpanu of DR Congo told the conference, “We are talking to the developed countries about how they can meet their historical responsibilities to deliver a fair and just climate deal for the world.”

Lack of commitment
Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary General, called for developed countries to deliver on their commitment to mobilise US$100 billion by 2020 for the Green Climate Fund and clarify where the money will be sourced and how it will be accessed.

It is too early to believe that anything substantial will come out of that Durban conference because we have seen so many such conferences before about climate change whose commitments have not been respected. The first World Climate Change Conference took place in 1979. Then there was the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Rio de Janeiro, in I992. There were others including the Kyoto Protocol and, more recently, the Cancun or Copenhagen Climate Change Conferences.

It is still the same story: a lack of commitment on the part of rich nations towards the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

ssalimichaelj@gmail.com