Asia-Pacific prepares to face global warming

Asia-Pacific prepares to face global warming

MANILA (Agencies): Asia-Pacific nations declared a "state of
emergency" Monday due to the threat of inundation faced by island
states due to global warming, as developed countries were urged
to reduce gaseous emissions by 20 percent by 2005.

The Manila declaration, supported by more than 100 top-level
delegates representing 29 countries at the three-day Asia-Pacific
Leaders Conference on Climate Change, warned of the threat of
global warming on the economy, culture and communities of these
island states and coastal nations.

Ata Qureshi, vice-president of the Washington-based Climate
Institute said even a one-meter (3.3-foot) increase in water
levels would result in the inundation of some islands.

This would have serious "implications for fisheries and
economics, considering the population on an atoll is much more
than the per-square density in Bangladesh," which is considered a
populous country, he noted.

Developed countries were "primarily responsible," for the
increased concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs), the
declaration said, and urged that these countries take the lead in
reducing emissions, through technology transfer and funding
assistance for developing alternative resources of energy.

Earlier, Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who attended
opening ceremonies of the conference said "it would only be fair
that those who have primarily polluted the environment take on a
major responsibility for cleaning it up."

The conference urged developed countries to reduce 1990 levels
of carbon dioxide emissions -- which are responsible for
destroying the ozone layer and trapping the earth's heat, causing
the meltdown of polar ice caps -- by 20 percent by the year 2005.

The industrialized world spews up to 23 billion tons of carbon
dioxide annually, up from 16 billion tons in 1972, Maurice
Strong, chairman of The Earth Council said in a statement.

Qureshi warned that "it may be 100 times more expensive" to
arrest the effects of GHGs if nations failed to act on the
problem right now.

"If business as usual continues it is expected that by the
year 2070 there will be a doubling" of the emissions, he said.

The declaration also expressed apprehension that future
environmental and trade measures may be used to pressure
developing nations into adopting policies detrimental to their
economic growth.

China, which is engaged in a trade row with the US on
copyright laws, voiced concern that tariff measures "may be
concealed in environmental rules or standards" to hamper economic
competitiveness of their products, Philippine senator Heherson
Alvarez, convener of the conference, said.

Bhutto and Philippine President Fidel Ramos also echoed the
same sentiments saying that any agreement to stabilize GHGs must
take into consideration the status of each country's development.

"It would be a terrible irony if the resulting agreement would
freeze the Third World in a state of underdevelopment," Ramos
said at opening remarks last Saturday.

At the same time, the declaration urged cooperation between
developed and developing countries, as well as public and private
partnerships in researching alternative and renewable energy
sources.

Meanwhile, the organizers of the Manila conference sad earlier
that Asia-Pacific region is facing "environmental Armaggedon"
because of global warming.

Entire nations are likely to become submerged as the seas rise
and weather patterns will change dramatically, producing
"ferocious typhoons and searing droughts", they said.

"Climate change is the most dangerous and challenging
consequence of global pollution," Heherson Alvarez, chairman of
the Philippine Senate's environmental committee, said in a
statement.

"It is as threatening as the challenge of nuclear
annihilation," said Alvarez, who heads the organizing body,
describing the threat as "environmental Armaggedon".

Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is the most prominent
of the legislators and scientists from more than 30 Asia-Pacific
nations attending the conference, which opens on Saturday,
organizers said.

But they said they are expecting a particularly hard-hitting
call for action from Vanuatu Prime Minister Maxime Carlot whose
low-lying Pacific island nation is especially vulnerable.

"They will be the first to go under," said one conference
official.

The conference is being held to prepare a draft action plan
for the region to be presented at an international conference in
March in Berlin.

"We also want to raise awareness among legislators in the
region who must start taking responsibility for this," said the
official.

Some scientists say world temperatures have been gradually
increasing for hundreds of years, with rapid industrialization in
the Asia-Pacific region speeding up the process.

They say eventually the polar ice caps will begin to melt,
raising sea levels all over the world and swamping island nations
and low-lying coastal areas, displacing millions of people.