Bali meeting is an opportunity for the global community to rally and agree on pact to cut emissions
Achim Steiner for the Straits Times 1 Dec 07;
WHEN I step into the conference centre in Bali, I will do so with a far lighter foot-fall than perhaps I would have done 12 months ago.
The spirit of optimism that has taken hold across the world on climate change is palpable, and the momentum is breathtaking.
Can Bali deliver a meaningful outcome and can the international community really rally to forge a deep and decisive emissions reduction regime to kick in by 2012?
Twelve months ago, I might have demurred and prevaricated. The past was characterised by stalemate and finger pointing, with polarised positions lending lethargy and indolence to international attempts to resolve the greatest challenge of our generation.
Not today. Indeed, when one casts a glimpse across the climate change landscape unfolding and the innovations underway, many significant achievements have already been made.
Governments across the world are paving the way forward.
The decision by the European Union to go for a 20 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2020, and 30 per cent if others follow, has reaffirmed the once-fading leadership role of developed countries.
Brazil, often criticised for the felling of the Amazon, has reduced deforestation by more than 50 per cent.
In India, the Prime Minister has requested a wide-ranging assessment of greenhouse gas emissions in order to pinpoint areas for action.
China has also reaffirmed its determination to reduce energy intensity and meet its renewable energy targets.
In the oil-rich United Arab Emirates, billions of dollars are being invested in solar power.
Countries in East Africa are testing fiscal and market-shaping instruments to encourage small-scale hydro- and biomass-power generation.
In the United States, close to half of all the states have established renewable energy requirements, and more than 300 cities have set emissions reduction targets in line with the Kyoto Protocol.
Australia's new administration has pledged to ratify the pact. Several countries, including Norway, Costa Rica and New Zealand, have said they will become carbon neutral.
Many others are waiting in the wings, and the United Nations has agreed to achieve similar aims across all the agencies and programmes. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) will be among the first, and we hope to announce carbon neutrality shortly.
Meanwhile, corporations in both the developed and developing worlds are switching investments and production lines towards greener goods and services.
De-carbonising and climate proofing the global economy is also about jobs.
A study by the US-based Management Information Services estimated that in 2005, the US environmental industry generated more than 5.3 million jobs. It reckoned that the environmental industry employs 10 times more workers than the US pharmaceutical industry.
In June this year, a Britain-based company, Eaga, which improves the energy efficiency of homes, floated on the London Stock Exchange - it employs 4,000 people in one of Britain's former coal mining regions.
Hansen, a wind power gear-box maker owned by Indian company Suzlon, is building a new factory in Coimbatore that will employ 800 people. A second newly built factory in Tianjin, China, will employ 600.
The Indian city of New Delhi is introducing new eco-friendly compressed natural gas buses, creating an additional 18,000 jobs.
Such jobs are more desirable as well.
In a US survey, more than 90 per cent of the young respondents said they would choose to work for an environmentally friendly and socially responsible company.
Another poll found workers in Brazil, China, Germany, India, Britain and the US happier and more likely to stay if they think their employers have strong corporate social responsibility policies.
The wider social impact is also becoming apparent.
Britain launched its Environmental Task Force as part of the New Deal for young unemployed people in 1998. The government estimated that around 45 per cent of those taking part find work immediately afterwards.
The Green Jobs Act in the US talks about the green economy as a 'pathway out of poverty'.
Future trends are promising.
Mr Roland Berger, a Munich-based consultancy, estimated that more people will be employed in environmental-tech industries in Germany in 2020 than in the car industry.
A report by UNEP's Finance Initiative estimated that the market providing finance for clean and renewable energies could reach US$1.9 trillion (S$2.7 trillion) by 2020.
In the wider environmental landscape, more creative market mechanisms are emerging, such as power companies with hydroelectric stations paying farmers to maintain forests and soils upstream in Costa Rica and Kenya.
Last week, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Commerce Ministry in China announced bans and restrictions on foreign investment in mining and some energy sectors, saying the country wants to encourage foreign investment that will instead protect the environment, cut pollution, develop renewable energy and stimulate innovation.
Research by the University of California at Berkeley indicated that 250,000 to 300,000 new jobs could be generated in the US if 20 per cent of its electricity needs were met by renewable sources.
It is within this landscape that delegates and governments meet in Bali. It may be too much to expect countries to agree over the next few days to a new post-2012 emissions reduction regime.
But agreements on the parameter of the negotiations and on completion in 2009 will be a key litmus test as to whether governments got the message last year.
Needless to say, the established industrialised economies must be the early movers. But the roles of rapidly developing economies in the coming decades and the part they can play in the climate challenge will be central too.
We also really need movement on the issue of standing forests under the banner of 'Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation'. Deforestation is accountable for around 20 per cent of the current greenhouse gas emissions.
Pledges on additional and serious levels of funding for adaptation must be part of the Bali equation, alongside technology transfer of clean and green technologies to developing countries.
Indeed, it is a good sign that ministers from not only environment but also from finance and trade are going to be part of the Bali talks.
In Bali and beyond, we need to also unleash the trillions of dollars in the world's pension and investment funds and steer them on the sustainable investment path.
If we can meet some of these aims, we can unleash human creativity and innovation on a scale that matches the magnitude of the challenge and expectations of communities and citizens everywhere.
Collectively, we have not only stared into the abyss this year, but also peered into a new future of possibilities and change towards a low- carbon, climate-proofed world.
We have been given choices to transform the way we do business on this planet - I cannot imagine that we can do anything less than seize them.
The writer is the United Nations Undersecretary- General and executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
