Tiempo Climate Newswatch

Climate change could cost the nations of the Andes US$30 billion a year by 2025, according to a new report prepared for the Andean Community (CAN). At the report's launch, the CAN Secretary General, Freddy Ehlers, argued that, as the current development model is incompatible with the planet’s sustainability, a new model is needed that would guarantee human development and a harmonious relationship with nature.

"Climate change is already happening. Floods, droughts, landslides, frosts, and landslips virtually doubled between 2002 and 2006, as compared with the five-year period 1987-1991," reported Carlos Amat y León, the study coordinator. "Since 1970, every single province in the CAN countries has experienced at least one hydrometeorological disaster." According to the assessment, deglaciation in the Andes could, by the year 2020, jeopardize the water supply for drinking, hydroenergy and farming for close to 40 million people. The supply of water to the Amazon could be threatened as global warming develops further.

A Greenhouse Development Rights framework has been proposed that would allow poorer countries to continue developing while contributing to greenhouse gas emissions reductions without any substantial effect on their economies. The scheme weights each nation's emissions by its wealth to determine a fair way to apportion emissions controls. Nations with high weighted emissions, as well as taking on responsibility for the bulk of emissions reductions, would subsidize emissions controls and adaptive measures in the poorer nations with low emissions.

A key aspect of the framework is that wealth is assessed after setting aside the income of the poorest inhabitants of each country in order to protect their interests. The overall aim is to treat "luxury" emissions differently from "survival" emissions. "We are trying to propose what would be fair," said Tom Athansiou of EcoEquity. The plan has been developed by EcoEquity and the Stockholm Environment Institute.

An internal review has criticized the performance of the World Bank in supporting environmental projects. A persistent lack of environmental focus was observed in each step of the lending chain, from determining the priorities that shape development projects to environmental standards and monitoring in the field. The review, by the Independent Evaluation Group, found that pledges of environmental sustainability were often not translated into practice when it came to financing dams, pipelines, and so on.

Moreover, the World Bank's estimate of its funding of environmental projects "appears to overstate the actual volume of resources going directly for environmental improvement," the report observes. One of the review's authors, John Redwood, has described problems in assessing environmental funding levels as "one of our great frustrations." "The priority given to lending for ENRM (environmental and natural resource management) appears to be modest," states the report.