Climate meeting urged to consider development of developing countries

As representatives of the world's governments prepare to meet in Kenya next week to agree on actions on climate change, an international environmental body on Saturday urged world leaders to act urgently on the issue.

London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) said in a statement issued here Saturday that tackling climate change must not compromise development goals.

The IIED said it has published a set of papers on how policy choices could affect the development of the world's less rich nations.

According to the organization, the 14 papers, which will be discussed during the 12th session of the Conference of the Parties to the Climate Change Convention (COP 12) in Nairobi next week, address key questions such as whether tackling deforestation is a cost-effective approach to mitigating climate change, and whether carbon offsets can bring benefits to developing countries.

The IIED said the papers highlight problems with existing policies and recommend ways of ensuring that steps taken bring benefits to the most vulnerable communities.

"It is essential that policymakers respond by making choices that do not harm the countries that have contributed least to climate change and are likely to suffer most from its effects," IIED director Camilla Toulmin said in a statement.

The organization said the trade-offs between tackling climate change and promoting economic development are complex. "For example, the trade in fruit and vegetables flown to the United Kingdom from Africa contributes to climate change but also supports the livelihoods of over one million Africans," the IIED said.

"Air-freighted produce from sub-Saharan Africa to the UK bestows considerable benefits on poor rural communities," said IIED's James MacGregor and Bill Vorley in their paper on this issue. "Not buying fresh produce air-freighted from Africa will reduce total UK emissions by less than 0.1 percent."

They argue that the UK should prioritize cutting greenhouse gas emissions from domestic road transport and energy use before addressing aviation.

The Kyoto Protocol provides tropical countries with little incentive to avoid deforestation. But the IIED research detailed in a paper by Maryanne Greig-Gran shows that global deforestation could be halved with the relatively low cost of 5 billion U.S. dollars spent on such compensation schemes.

The United Nations climate change conference will take place in Nairobi, Kenya, for two weeks from Monday. The summit will look at what progress has been made by the Kyoto Protocol negotiated in 1997 which requires industrial nations to cut their emissions by at least 5 percent comparing to the level in 1990.

Source: Xinhua