By Ramesh Jaura
InterPress Service
December 7, 1997
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has launched a 100 million U.S. dollar new facility to help developing countries reduce their emissions of heat-trapping gases that cause global warming.
Called 'Urban Tech 21', the facility was introduced Saturday, during ongoing talks here on climate change. The developing countries have been under strong pressure at the 10-day conference to agree to ''limit'' the emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, which is produced by the burning of fossil fuels.
Launching the new facility, UNDP's assistant administrator Anders Wijkman said the world organisation's development arm was not involved in negotiations on climate change. But UNDP was committed to assist developing nations in building capacities so they would be able to limit their emissions of greenhouse gases, he explained.
The new facility is designed to help developing countries address local environment and development problems - such as in the areas of waste management, energy, and transport - and obtain access to technological solutions which focus on tackling the threat of global warming.
Wijkman said Urban Tech 21 is a new example of public-private partnership which the UNDP had launched in 1995. Under this policy thrust, the UNDP will identify problems, match them with potential solutions and ensure that they represent legitimate ways out of growing urban environmental pollution in the developing countries.
One of UNDP's partners in the project is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), with a number of centres of technical excellence in developing countries. They will be invited to provide the capacity building support for the project.
Wijkman said industry's technological, managerial and financial strengths, coupled with a growing interest in sharing knowledge and expertise, would benefit from participation in the networks of technology cooperation to be provided by Urban Tech 21.
The new facility would also provide industry from both the industrialised as well as the developing world, a well-established system for sharing expertise and know-how targeted directly at the urban environment. It would also establish joint ventures and identify potential sites for commercial development of key technologies in the pilot or demonstration stage, the UNDP's assistant administrator pointed out.
According to an UNDP briefing paper, circulated at the talks here, developing countries contribute less to global warming than industrialised countries. Still, they are likely to be the hardest hit from the impacts of climate change.
The projected shifting in weather patterns will take a heavy toll on crop production, especially in the poorest countries, which depend on agriculture for income and food. It may also destabilise tropical forests and the rich biodiversity that they contain. Coastal areas and small island nations are particularly vulnerable to more frequent storms and rising sea levels that may result from global warming, adds the UNDP briefing paper.
This is also the reason that members of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) want to see a 20 percent rollback by 2015 in emissions of greenhouse gases, produced mainly by the industrialised nations.
However, they have joined other member nations of the Group of 77, comprising 131 developing countries, and China, in backing the European Union's proposal for reductions of 7.5 percent by the year 2005 and 15 percent by 2010 in the major greenhouse gases. But the G-77 plus China are also prodding the 15-nation EU to 35 percent cuts by 2020.
Japan, which as host government of the Kyoto conference has a central role to play in finding a consensus, is proposing a reduction of 5 percent by 2008-2012, although individual countries would be able to opt for lower targets.
The U.S. supports returning all greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2008-2012 and has affirmed during the talks in Kyoto that it would agree to legally binding timetables and targets for reduction of emissions only if there was ''meaningful'' participation by developing countries.
The pressure on the developing nations started mounting when, backed by most industrialised countries, New Zealand tabled a formal request Friday for developing countries to play their part in near future efforts to combat global warming.
At a plenary session on Friday, Darryl Dunn, head of the New Zealand delegation, proposed that developing nations make a binding commitment to ''limit'' - not reduce - their greenhouse emissions, starting around 2015. The United States gave its full support to New Zealand's proposal.
The European Union, which had been taking a reserved stance on the issue, also extended support to New Zealand. Speaking on behalf of the EU, Pierre Gramegna of Luxembourg reaffirmed the European Union's position that the so-called Berlin mandate precludes any new commitments from developing countries being required in a protocol to be adopted in Kyoto. However, he said: ''We also think it would be appropriate to start a review process. . . with a view to establishing further commitments for all parties.''
The Berlin mandate was given at the first conference of parties (COP-1) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), held in 1995 in Berlin, Germany. The convention was endorsed at the Earth Summit in June 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and has meanwhile been signed by 168 countries and the EU.
New Zealand's proposal was however rejected by the Group of 77 plus China. Mark Mwandosya from Tanzania said: ''This is not a time to place the question of developing countries' participation or commitment. It is the time to address questioning developed countries' commitment.''
''Unless the developed countries agree to legally binding targets and timetables,'' Saiyid Musharraf Husain of Bangladesh told IPS, ''we are going to leave Kyoto with empty hands.'' His view was backed by African and Latin American delegates here.
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