Global warming in Asia

Global warming in Asia

The Nation, Asia News Network, Bangkok

The heat is literally on, and climate change could wreak havoc
with basic subsistence patterns across the continent

One cannot fail to notice a change in the weather pattern. For
Thailand, a hotter climate has persisted over the past several
years. The rainy season has become less consistent. This year,
for instance, the rainy months were clearly shorter.

From South Asia to China to Indonesia most of the population
lives off the land, many on a subsistence basis. Countries like
Thailand may be industrializing and branching out to become
service-based economies; as a society we may debate incentives
for promoting investments; but at the end of the day the
livelihood of the majority of people remains closely linked to
the weather, to the soil, to water and those environmental
conditions that hold the country's social, economic and political
life together.

At the end of last week the visiting head of the UK
Meteorological Office's Hedley Centre for Climate Prediction,
David Griggs, met up with the Asian Business Council in Singapore
with what sounded like a prophecy of doom. The Asian region is
becoming hotter, more prone to drought in inland areas and at
greater risk from typhoons.

He told the Financial Times that global warming, much of it
induced by Asia's own industrialization and carbon-dioxide
emissions, was likely to have a big impact on agriculture,
industry and the insurance sector and also on the lives of the
poor, if sea level rose by one metre.

So environmental degradation and global warming are not the
West's exclusive concern, after all. Shining the spotlight on the
potential impact on Asia is very welcome despite the incomplete
data. And governments and people in Asia must heed Griggs's
warning: "If you're a major food-producer, or you rely on water,
virtually every industry will be affected in some way. What we're
still trying to understand is exactly how.

Only a handful of Asian industrialists are taking this
alarming news seriously. Among them is Esquel, a Hong Kong-based
textile group with 47,000 workers, whose chairwoman, Marjorie
Yang, spoke at an international conference organized by The
Nation in Bangkok earlier this year, and Godrej & Boyce, a
leading Indian refrigerator-manufacturer.

Some multinationals also want to lead the way, including
Lafarge, the French building-materials group, and Holcim, the
Swiss-based building-materials company affiliated with Siam City
Cement Co.

While Asia can benefit from more "environmental-activist"
companies, Asian governments have every interest in taking
greater initiatives on rules and regulations. The Thai government
in particular should step back from its almost religious belief
in ruthlessly exploiting available natural resources, an
obsession that we have seen throughout the past four years under
the Thaksin administration.

As the congress of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) draws
to a close this week in Bangkok, its members should resolve to
put two central messages across: "Time is running out" and "the
time for action is now".

A whole range of complicated and interconnected challenges
lies ahead, but the single most important step that responsible
governments, corporate citizens and people all over the world
must take is to change entrenched mind sets that politicize
everything while doing almost nothing to avert impending,
potentially disastrous threats to mankind.