Climate expert praises Sabah’s approach in managing Sipadan and Mt Kinabalu

Ruben Sario, The Star 1 Oct 09;

KOTA KINABALU: Sabah got a “pat on the back” from a United Nations climate expert for its approach in managing ecologically sensitive areas such as Mount Kinabalu and the diving haven of Pulau Sipadan.

Gabor Vereczi, the UN Development Programme regional technical advisor for Climate Change Adaptation in the Pacific, said the move to limit visitors to such sites would ease any stress these areas could face due to climate change.

Borneo would not escape the effects of global warming due to climate change, Vereczi said in an interview yesterday.

It was just a matter of time, said Vereczi who was one of the speakers on the issue at the three-day Tourism Promotion Organi-sation for Asia Pacific Cities (TPO) general assembly here.

Earlier, Sabah Tourism chairman Datuk Tengku Zainal Adlin Engku Mahamood told the participants that the state was limiting the number of daily visitors to Mount Kinabalu to 146 and 120 to Sipadan as part of its management plan for these areas.

To a question from the floor, Tengku Adlin said the effects of climate change on places like Sipadan was negligible, adding that there were no significant signs of coral bleaching.

However, Vereczi said that the effects of climate change would be felt throughout Asia from low-lying coastal plains to mountainous areas.

“We are already seeing more intense flooding in river deltas such as the Mekong,” he said.

He added that as global warming became more apparent, plant and animal species from the low areas would be seen more frequently at higher altitudes.

He said the most vulnerable to climate change in the Asia-Pacific area were an estimated 634 million people living in coastal areas from Bangladesh to Shanghai in China, noting that sea levels had increased by between 2.5cm and 23.5cm.

Vireczi said the world was locked into climate change: “Even if we have a magic button that would instantly stop all carbon emissions, we would still be on track for global warming.”

He said it was not all gloom as far as climate change was concerned as there were technical solutions and what was needed was the will to use them in a systematic manner.