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The Energy Emergency and the
Developing World.
” A whole host of factors such as climate change, land grabs, food price
spikes and intensive farming are stopping nearly 900 million - that's 1 in 8
people - worldwide from having enough to eat.”
“Oxfam’s Grow Campaign has a simple message: another future is
possible, and we can build it together. Over the coming years, decisive
action across the world could enable hundreds of millions more people to
feed their families and prevent catastrophic climate change from
destroying their (and our) futures. But only if we collectively stop
oursleepwalk towards ecological disaster. This is Oxfam’s wakeup call.”
• How will climate change affect the developing
world?
• How do existing international agreements on
carbon emissions affect the developing world?
• How can the world respond to the rise of the
BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) countries?
• Can 'Trade Justice' and 'Climate Justice' co-exist?
•
Can we reach an international climate deal that
would be fair and acceptable to all?
Why Energy Emergency?
• Scale and impacts of climate change being
revised upwards
• Carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise.
Risk of being ‘locked in’ to 5 or 6 degree
temperature rise.
The Developing World
• Historically low emissions but (at least for
the BRIC countries) rapidly rising
• High impacts of climate change
• Location of major carbon sinks (rainforests,
peatlands)
• Energy Poor.
• Population increase
• Affected by ‘false solutions to climate
change.
“Climate Change will affect us all, but it is the
world’s poorest people who are suffering first
and worst.”
World Development Movement.
Christian Aid.
• Scientists predict that at the current rate of carbon emissions tens of
millions more people will go hungry in the next couple of decades as
agricultural yields diminish across the globe.
• And if nothing is done to stem a rise of 2°C in global average temperatures
by 2050 - they say - 250 million more people will be forced to leave their
homes.
• Around 30 million more people will go hungry as agricultural yields go into
recession across the globe.
• One to three billion people will suffer acute water shortages, while nearly a
fifth of Bangladesh will be submerged as sea levels rise.
• Not that we have to wait until then for the bad stuff, though. A 1°C rise,
expected by 2020, would see an extra 240 million people experiencing
water ‘stress’ – where supply can no longer be stretched to meet demand.
The predicted 1.3°C rise by 2025 would see tens of millions more going
hungry due to falling agricultural yields in the developing world and rising
global food prices.
One
• Agricultural yields in some African countries
declining by 50% by 2050.
• 70 million people and 30% of African coastal
infrastructure could face flooding by 2030.
• By 2080 260-320m more people could be
living in malaria infested areas.
How many are being killed per year
now?
• WHO: 150, 000
• WDM (2007): 160, 000
• Global Humanitarian Forum (2009):
300, 000
• Climate Vulnerability Monitor (2012):
400, 000.
Climate Vulnerability Monitor: A Guide
to the Cold Calculus of A Hot Planet
• Climate change killing 400, 000 people a year
now.
• Air pollution caused by burning fossil fuels kills
4.5 million people per year.
• 100 million dead by 2030 if we don’t act on
climate change.
• Costing the world $1.2 trillion per year
• Wiping 1.6 % of global GDP annually- will be 3.2%
by 2030. (Only 0.5% of GDP needed to reduce
emissions)
‘Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4 degree
warmer world must be avoided.’
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•
•
•
Report by the World Bank (November 2012)
World on track for a 4 degree world.
Warns of catastrophic consequences.
Effects of warming climate ‘tilted against many
of the world’s poorest nations’
“It is my hope that this report shocks us into action. Even for those of us already committed to fighting
climate change, I hope it causes us to work with much more urgency. This report spells out what the world
would be like if it warmed by 4 degrees Celsius, which is what scientists are nearly unanimously predicting
by the end of the century, without serious policy changes. The 4°C scenarios are devastating: the
inundation of coastal cities; increasing risks for food production potentially leading to higher malnutrition
rates; many dry regions becoming dryer, wet regions wetter; unprecedented heat waves in many regions,
especially in the tropics; substantially exacerbated water scarcity in many regions; increased frequency of
high-intensity tropical cyclones; and irreversible loss of biodiversity, including coral reef systems. And most
importantly, a 4°C world is so different from the current one that it comes with high uncertainty and new
risks that threaten our ability to anticipate and plan for future adaptation needs. The lack of action on
climate change not only risks putting prosperity out of reach of millions of people in the developing world, it
threatens to roll back decades of sustainable development…Finding ways to avoid that scenario is vital for
the health and welfare of communities around the world. While every region of the world will be affected,
the poor and most vulnerable would be hit hardest. A 4°C world can, and must, be avoided.”
Other effects
• Food rises in 2008 and 2010: linked to biofuels
and Russian wildfires – massive loss of wheat
harvest.
• Significant prices increases led to hardship and
food riots in several countries.
The Rise of the BRIC countries
What about China?
• China world’s greatest
emitter in 2006
• In 2012 China’s emissions
became virtually the
same as those those of
EU.
• Increased emissions 9% in
2011 while developed
nations’ emissions fell.
• 1/5 of China’s emissions
caused by the production
of goods for export to the
developed world.
• The figures don’t include
international travel so the
difference between China
and EU probably greater.
• China has a small share of
historical emissions.
The Developing World in 2030 and
2050
IEA predicts a 40% increase in energy demand
2007-2030. 54% of that will come from coal in
China and India. 90% will come from developing
countries.
Population: Projected increase to 9.2 billion in
2050.
Sustainable development?
• 1.5 billion people in the world with no
electricity (two thirds in Asia, the remainder in
Africa).
• 80% of India’s population (2010) depend on
firewood for cooking
• WHO: smoke from burning wood kills 1.3
million per year (more than malaria).
Fair Trade
“Fair trade causes climate change because of the
‘food miles’ that its products travel. I’m buying
locally instead.”
If someone said this to you, how would you
reply?
You could say…..
1) Vast majority of fair trade products are transported to the UK by
ship.
2) Distance travelled is not significant in terms of life cycle emissions.
3) Tomatoes grown in a heated greenhouse in the UK.
4) Not all but most products that people buy are tea, bananas, coffee
and chocolate. People are replacing one banana with another banana.
Are they seriously suggesting not eating bananas?
5) Even if you say that the Developing world (BRICs) are part of the
climate change problem, poor farmers in sub-saharan Africa are not.
6) Fair trade is supporting producers in adapting to climate change.
How to we help the ‘energy poor’?
• ‘Leapfrog’ the fossil fuel age and go straight to
clean energy.
• Kenya: greatest number of solar panels per
person in the world.
• Phillipines generates 27% of electricity from
geothermal energy.
• Solar panels on 3% of the Sahara would
provide for all the world’s energy needs
Christian Aid report.
• ‘Low carbon Africa: Leapfrogging to a green
future’.
Biofuels.
• EU target: being overhauled from October
2012.
• Action Aid campaigning on ‘Food not Fuel’.
• Oxfam campaigning on the way biofuels is
driving ‘land grabs’.
• Biofuels is one of the four ‘If’s.
What is on offer in international
negotiations.
• Offsetting
• Clean Development Mechanisms (CDMs)
• REDD (Reducing emissions from Deforestation
and forest Degradation).
2 degrees or 1.5?
• Developed countries: 2 degrees of warming
above pre-industrial levels (equivalent to 450
parts per million)
• Many developing countries 1.5 degrees of
warming above pre-industrial levels
(equivalent to 350 parts per million).
• “the kind of agreement currently on offer is both
inadequate and in many ways, unjust. This is because
the political forces and special interests …. have
essentially worked on two fronts, trying not only to
block the UN talks completely but also to weaken them
from within- using their presence at the talks, and
influence on politicians, to ensure that their financial
interests come before the effectiveness of any
solutions adopted so that the agreements reached are
often watered down and full of loopholes- and also, in
many cases, favour the rich at the expense of the
poor.” Phil Thornhill (ex-Co-ordinator of CCC)
At two degrees we would lose the coral reefs.
At two degrees we would melt Greenland.
At two degrees my country would not survive.
As a president I cannot accept this.
As a person I cannot accept this.
President Nasheed of the Maldives in 2009
What should we call for?
• A fair global climate deal (incorporating
something like Contraction and Convergence)
• Climate Finance for the Developing world- for
adaptation and mitigation..
• Opportunities for clean development for the
developing world.
• Support for small farmers/ fair trade.
• Protecting carbon sinks (e.g. rainforests).
Judgements on the Doha Climate Talks
December 2012.
“One in eight people worldwide go hungry every day. Yet the
lack of progress on agriculture at these talks means that small
scale farmers who feed most of the world’s population will
receive no further support, even though droughts, floods and
erratic rain are making it increasingly difficult for them to put
food on the table."
CAFOD Head of Campaigns Clare Lyons
"Those who are indifferent need to open their eyes. Those
who are obstructive and self-serving need to realise we are
not talking about how comfortably your people live but
whether our people live."
Kieren Keke, Nauru Foreign Minister, who led the Alliance of
Small Island States.