As a finance trade ministers meeting will start on the sideline of the ongoing UN climate change conference in Bali, Indonesia, World Growth (WG), anon-profit and non-governmental organization, warned Monday that the meeting may risk "letting a golden opportunity slip."
Alan Oxley, Chairman of the WG, said, "bringing together Finance Ministers to Bali is all well and good, but the risk is they will whitewash the cost of mitigation and focus on the cost of adaptation. There will be no new consensus on climate change until the real costs to developing countries are addressed."
Oxley said that there was legitimate concern among developing countries about the strategy of deep, early cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases, which are blamed for worsening global warming.
This strategy had been proposed in the British Government report prepared by Sir Nicholas Stern and endorsed by P. C. Pachauri, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The British government plans to announce this week a new 'Adaptation Fund' for this purpose, according to the WG.
The view among most development economists was that Stern had badly underestimated the costs. Stern has been heavily criticized by leading development economists for downplaying the real impact of early, deep cuts.
Oxley said developing countries were right to complain that funding for adaptation had not been made available. But the costs of early, deep cuts to mitigate emissions of greenhouse gases was a much bigger problem and should be the primary concern of the finance ministers.
This showed the need for finance ministers to sort out the economics of deep cuts, Oxley said, adding "measures which severely damage economic growth are not sustainable. We need a measured assessment of the costs and options."
Europe wants a United Nations plan that sets binding targets to reduce global greenhouse gases. Its long-term goal is cuts of 60 percent by 2050. Sir Nicholas says this would reduce world GDP by no more than 1 percent.
A new report of the WG titled "Real Threat to Developing Countries - Early, Deep Cuts in Emissions," said that the strategy of the European Union and Sir Nicholas Stern of making early, deep cuts in emissions the centerpiece of a post Kyoto global framework would harm developing countries and derail efforts to alleviate global poverty in the developing world.
Bali, a resort island of Indonesia, is currently hosting a two-week U.N. climate change conference, which is tasked with drawing up a "roadmap" for negotiations on a new climate change deal before the current phase of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.
Source:Xinhua
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