Monsoon changes ‘hit seven million Sri Lankans’
No commentsNearly seven million people in the dry zone in Sri Lanka were severely affected this year by unexpected changes in the monsoon.
Environment Minister Champika Ranawake announced the figure at the inauguration of the 18th world congress of the Asia-Pacific Federation of Environment Journalists (APFEJ) in Colombo.
With a hint that climate change had aggravated the monsoon changes, the Minister said developing countries were justified in demanding substantial cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) by developed countries.
The minister said the variability of the monsoon rains had greatly increased. They would come unnaturally late or early, or would not come at all, or sometimes they would produce several days’ rain in a matter of a few hours.
He said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had warned the developed countries that if they continued “business as usual,” without cutting emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases, the world’s hopes of food security would fade, especially in the developing nations.
As many as 1.2 billion people in Asia would face severe water shortages from reduced rainfall and melting glaciers, it warned.
At the climate negotiations in Copenhagen in December, the minister said, Sri Lanka would argue that the developed countries should reduce their domestic greenhouse gas emissions by 49% below their 1990 levels by 2020 to limit the global average temperature rise to 1.5C.
The developed countries were historically responsible for climate change by their emissions of GHGs since the industrial revolution, he said.
Mr Ranawake said an effective funding mechanism would be needed to help developing countries to adapt to the impacts of climate change. “The adaptation fund under the Kyoto Protocol is not sufficient,” he said.
Sri Lanka argues that developing countries need financial grants of 1% of the GDP of industrialised countries to help them to adapt.
The Kyoto Protocol, ratified by192 countries, sets targets for emission cuts for industrialised countries (known as the Annex One countries) until 2012, referred to as the first commitment period. The Copenhagen meeting is being held to agree new cuts for the years after 2012.
The British High Commissioner in Colombo, Dr. Peter Hayes, agreed that developed countries should be historically responsible for the GHG emissions that had caused climate change.
They should play a lead role, he said, based on mitigating climate change and helping the developing world to adapt to its effects.
Dr. Hayes said the UN’s Bangkok climate talks, which ended in deadlock in October, left him still optimistic that it was not too late to reach a fair agreement in Copenhagen. But the developing countries too had a role to play. “There are no passengers,” he said.
The developing countries should not repeat the mistakes of the developed world in their path to development, but should seek to avoid burning fossil fuels.
“Developing countries have two choices: either to make the mistakes we made, or to learn from them and develop sustainably,” he added.
Journalists had a critical role to play, he said: not only to write “pieces” on climate change but to make people aware that they too could help to lessen its effects.
Journalists as well as government and non-governmental organizations from 23 countries in the Asia and Pacific region attended the three-day conference, entitled “Educate to end climate poverty.”
The International Green Pen award was presented to Haroldo F. Castro, an award-winning Brazilian video director and producer, environmental journalist and photographer. Castro has produced a vast array of video and TV materials. He directed more than 60 programmes, and his documentaries have won 50 awards in the USA. Awards were also presented to outstanding local environment journalists from the print media.
The event was jointly organized by the Sri Lanka Environmental Journalists’ Forum (SLEJF), the Commonwealth Environmental Journalists’ Association (CEJA), and APFEJ.
