"In the maelstrom of the climate negotiations in Copenhagen and Cancun, developed countries agreed on transferring money to developing countries in order to help them adapt to climate change. However, the negotiations unfortunately happened during a difficult period for mobilizing “public resources”; several countries had to break their piggy banks just to save their economies from collapse. Crunched for resources, developed countries argued that the money needed for adaptation could not come from public sources alone, funds would need to come from “innovative sources”." Florent Baarsch writes about the FTT aka 'the Robin Hood Tax" in It's Not A Tax, It's a Future
Bangladesh maintains its no-nonsense, pace-setting status in climate change activism with it's announcement today of plans to amend its constitution to provide a provision which addresses climate change.
“The state shall take appropriate response measures, including mitigation and adaptation, against anthropogenic-accelerated global-warming-induced climate change and sea-level rise.”
The country is the first to adapt its constitution with an amendment providing the government with authority to insure legal action and penalties be imposed on institutions and/or people found responsible for climate change-related damages.
Bangladesh: climate change rally 2008. Women wearing the masks of G8 leaders join climate change protest in Dhaka. Picture credit: Caroline Gluck/Oxfam
The amendment results from the findings of a 2010 five-member tribunal jury in Dhaka, where scientists, lawyers and parliamentarians met to hear local families who had lost families and livelihoods due to the impacts of climate change.
"Robin Hood made a conspicuous appearance at the UN Climate Talks in Bonn today. The token caps of Sherwood Forest’s merry band of thieves are popping up all over the conference center; as labor, development and environmental leaders call on negotiators to replace the future robbed from the developing countries most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change by securing innovative sources of finance for adaptation & mitigation." Joshua Wiese, Global Director of Adopt a Negotiator writes Robin Hood invades UN Climate Talks to push for innovative sources of climate finance
Saber Hossain Chowdhury, a jury member and chair of the All-party Parliamentary Group on Climate Change and the Environment in the Bangladesh parliament, told the climate tribunal that scientists project that up to one-third of the country may eventually submerged permanently or temporarily as sea levels rise, rendering up to 50 million people homeless.
“Those responsible for such a state of affairs must take responsibility,” Chowdhury said. “Climate refugees must be provided for.” Bangladesh laying constitutional groundwork to seek climate damages
The country also led the way in being the first nation to file its National Adaptation Programme Action (NAPA), an outstanding document which is used by numerous other countries as a working model.
Prof. Ainun Nishat, Bangladesh key negotiator on water and adaptation at yesterday's a side event on "Water, Climate and Development: Towards COP 17."
Bangladesh on the marginalization of LDCs
Bangladesh UN Under-Secretary-General Anwarul K. Chwodhury who vented his frustrations with the current state of the negotiating process prior to last April’s Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) (describing it as "permeated by a mood of desperation and disappointment") pointed out then that 880 million people currently residing in 48 LDCs remain the voiceless and the most marginalized, not worthy of attention until "they are engulfed in conflict or devastated by natural disasters."
In recent years, the global situation, of course, has changed in a negative way requiring a new and innovative approach to structure the possible outcome in Istanbul. Unfortunately, this has not been the case and the preparations took the path of working on an outcome that lacked any spark worthwhile for energizing the LDCs and as a result, the usual, insensitive bickering of the United Nations negotiating process has been visible all through. This unfortunately manifested its worst face when the expression "development partners" present in all previous LDCs-related documents of the UN came under serious and persistent challenge from the long-recognized donor countries. See MAJOR SALVAGING NEEDED FOR LDC IV IN ISTANBUL
Bangladesh @ COP16
In no uncertain terms, officials and scientists representing Bangladesh at the Cancun talks made it clear yesterday that their country, which unabashedly occupies Ground Zero in the climate wars, is fearless and righteously proud in its determination to save itself by ensuring it receives an equitable share of fast track financing to assist developing countries in adapting to climate change.
"Loans are not an option for my country," said Bangladesh Minister of State for the Environment Dr. Hasan Mahmud. "We did nothing to create this problem and we should not be charged in solving it."
Unless something is done now, chances are in less than 40 years you will look at the map and Bangladesh will no longer be there. What will remain of this country will not be recognizable.
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Here's just one example of how intricate and extensively laborious official documents are ...
An exampleof a revised document released today. Try reading through this ONE document which is from:
Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice
Thirty-fourth session
Bonn, 616 June 2011
Agenda item 9(b)
Methodological issues under the Convention
Revision of the UNFCCC reporting guidelines on annual inventories for
Parties included in Annex I to the Convention
Revision of the UNFCCC reporting guidelines on annual
inventories for Parties included in Annex I to the Convention
The Key Issue ...
Military experts in the United States and Europe support the estimate that by mid century, climate change will make vast parts of Africa and Asia uninhabitable. Analysts say it could trigger a migration the size of which the world has never before seen.
250 million people—a population almost that of the entire United States—could be on the move by 2050. They will go because temperatures are rising and desertification has set in where rainfall is needed most. They will go because more potent monsoons are making flood-prone areas worse. They will go because of other water events caused by melting glaciers, rising seas and the slow and deadly seepage of saline water into their wells and fields.
The worst migration cases will be nations like the Maldives and small islands in the Pacific. Their inhabitants will go because their homelands will likely sink beneath the rising sea.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a minimum of 207 million people in Latin America, Asia and Africa will not have enough water inside a decade. In Asia, an extra 130 million people will be at risk of hunger by the middle of the century. By 2100, crop revenues in Africa will drop 90 percent. And scientists see Bangladesh as ground zero. Bangladesh: At the mercy of climate change
GHG-Framed Mitigation Actions by Developing Countries (WRI)
Forty-one developing countries have submitted mitigation actions under the UNFCCC in line with the 2010 Cancun agreements. This paper examines the subset of developing country actions that are framed in greenhouse gas (GHG) terms.
Further Reading
Earth Negotiations Bulletin Issue #9 Vol. 12 No. 510
Kelly Rigg: Desperately Seeking Solutions… and Finding Them
IPS:Climate Regulatory Gap Could Result After 2012 Kyoto Expiration
Follow ongoing coverage of the Bonn Talks @ Beyond Kyoto