Conference members met to talk about the climate change issues facing Asia, and what the developed world should do about it. (Nava Thakuria)
The conference, “Reaching Copenhagen Climate Summit and Beyond: Role of Media,” was organized at the National Press Club in coordination with a number of NGOs in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, from Sept. 1 to 3.
Speakers expressed concern over the slow progress of climate negotiation over the climate adversities facing many countries. They also called for deeper emission cuts in industrialized countries to protect vulnerable countries in Asia.
“Today, climate change emerges as a challenge to mankind, where the adaptation practice alone will not work. Mitigation should be accepted as the only irreversible solution to the problem,” Majumder said.
Festus Luboyera, the program officer of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, agreed that many Asian countries were at risk from the effects of climate change, and that he hoped the December summit in Copenhagen will pave the way for a low-carbon society.
“Copenhagen would be the culmination of a negotiation process that was launched in 2007 in Bali—the year the scientific community sounded the alarm bells and declared that climate change is unequivocal—will have serious impacts and can be tackled at a reasonable cost,” Luboyera said. He emphasized, however, that Copenhagen has to be clear about the concrete steps towards the goals of 2020.
“It has to be absolutely clear what developing countries will do to limit the growth of their emissions, because without that indication, we will not get the ratification in many industrialized countries, not least the U.S.,” he said.
Nava Thakuria is a freelance journalist based in Guwahati, northeast India.
