CLIMATE JUSTICE ON TOP OF CLIMATE CHANGE

By Andi Abdussalam

Jakarta, Dec 11 (ANTARA) - Calls for justice in the handling of global warming continued to be echoed amid the on-going international conference on climate change in the Indonesian tourist resort island of Bali.

        Delegates at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are still divided over whether developed countries should be responsible for the funding of the reduction of emissions from deforestation and degradation in developing countries.

        Calls on rich countries --which have enjoyed prosperity but contributed major gases-- to compensate poor nations were being made as an effort to find equal justice with regard to the climate change.

        "Climate justice is on top of climate change," said Effendy Gozali, a communication expert, during a Metro TV's program called "News Dot Com" on Sunday. Gozali's remarks explained how justice is being fought for during the climate change conference.

        The same calls were also voiced by non-governmental organizations such as Oxfam International, a group of NGOs from three continents working worldwide to fight poverty and injustice.

        On Tuesday, Oxfam once again called on rich countries to provide adaptation funds in compensation for developing and poor countries over gas emissions they had produced.

        In the climate change map, it was written that developing nations needed about one to two billion US dollars for adaptation funds, where India and China were included in the group.

        The adaptation funds the developed countries have agreed to only amounted to 67 million dollars, smaller than the fund the US spends on lotion consumption a month.

        NGOs generally urged rich countries --who consumed excessive fuel oil that generated global warming-- to provide compensation in the form of adaptation funds for developing states.

        Even they wanted developed nations to write off developing nations' debts.

        Activists of the Civil Society Forum called on advanced states to write off developing countries' debts which they said had led to the exploitation of natural resources and increasing poverty in developing nations.

        While celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Kyoto Protocol, they held a peaceful rally on the premises of the Westin Hotel, the venue of the on-going international conference on climate change.

        The forum said that developing countries, in the name of development, often fought for large-scale projects such forest felling, exploitation of mineral resources and fossil energy sponsored by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.

        The forum spokesman, Anida Haryatmo, said the loans developing countries had obtained from the World Bank and Asian Development Bank had adversely created poverty among their peoples, destroyed the environment and caused the swelling of the debts of Southern countries.

        Because damage to the environment was closely related to the climate problem, the forum urged Southern countries to build strength to demand the writing off of their debts so that they would be able to finance the crisis they were facing as a result of climate change.

        On the need for the adaptation funds for developing countries, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) researchers urged developed nations to immediately discuss adaptation funds as the key to the solution of problems being discussed at the UNFCCC conference.

        Kevin Watkins, the lead author of a report titled "Fighting Climate Change: Human Solidarity in a Divided World", said rich countries had left poor countries in the lurch, putting the latter in a state of "sinking or swimming" without any support.

        The report on the impact of climate change on global development in 2007/2008 pointed out an imbalanced trend in the funding sector to adapt to climate change.

        The UNDP said the trend may lead to an apartheid-style adaptation phenomenon as poor countries would be left sinking alone and forced to rely on their own capacity without significant support from rich countries.

        Speaking at a press conference held on the occasion of the climate change meeting, Kavin said it was high time for developed nations "to step forward" with regard to adaptation funds.

        In its Human Development Report, UNDP predicted adaptation funds needed by 2015 would be US$86 billion per year.

        "The figure seems very large but actually it only accounts for 0.2 percent of rich countries' GDP," he said.

        Adaptation funds derived from all multilateral funding sources in the past two years amounted to only US$26 million, which is equal to the amount of funds spent by Britain on a flood-control project for a week, he said. (A014/A/HNG/A/E002)