From knowledge to action: dealing with climate change in Asia

Climate change is likely affect people in Asia more than anywhere else. We must stop further global warming and learn how to live with existing and expected changes. We need to design a model for human development that is climate proof and gives everyone a fair share of the natural resources upon which we all depend.

The latest global scientific consensus from the Intergovernmental Panelon Climate Change (IPCC) shows that Asia will get warmer during this century. Researchfrom the International Institute for Environment and Development and from theNew Economics Foundation, in the UK, finds that warming will be accompanied byless predictable and more extreme patterns of rainfall. Tropical cyclones willincrease in size and frequency, while monsoons, around which farming systemsare designed, are expected to become more unpredictable in their strength andtime of onset.

Over 60 percent of the world’s population lives in Asia. Two billionpeople (half of the Asian population) live near the coast, making themvulnerable to sea-level rise. Disruption to the region’s water threatens thesecurity and productivity of the food systems upon which they depend. Governments already know not only the causes ofclimate change but also how to reduce future climate change and how to adapt.

The findings of this research outline the problems and the positivemeasures that are already being taken by governments, civil society andordinary people to overcome the effects of climate change.

• Emissions from wealthy industrialisedcountries are still rising. Civil society organisations are calling forgovernments to set legally binding ‘carbon budgets’ to achieve emissions cutsof at least 80 percent on 1990 levels by 2050.
• Use of fossil fuels in Asia is growing, but per capitaemissions are still below industrialised countries’ levels, and Asia is leadingthe world in renewable energy technologies.
• Asian governments are choosing between engineering-ledsolutions to sea-level rise and helping coastal communities work more closelywith nature, using approaches such as ‘managed retreat’.
• People are responding to environmental change byrediscovering traditional, more drought-resistant livelihoods.
• Demonstrations against airport and motorway expansionare evidence of rising public action to tackle carbon emissions.

The challenge of climate change is clear and many of the solutions areknown. The minimum action necessary to deal with the threat of global warmingincludes:

• a global risk assessment of the costs of adaptation toclimate change in poor countries and sufficient new funds from industrialisedcountries for poor country adaptation
• effective arrangements to respond to the increasingburden of climate-related disaster relief
• development models based on risk reduction,incorporating community-driven strategies in adaptation and disasterpreparedness
• disaster awareness campaigns with materials producedat community level and in local languages
• coordinated plans, from local to international levels,for relocating threatened communities with appropriate political, legal andfinancial resources
• removing barriers todeveloping countries accessing appropriate technologies.