ASEAN Accepts Climate Change
Recent Meeting Outlines Agenda for 13th ASEAN Summit
The 10th informal Ministerial Meeting of ASEAN held in Bangkok has laid out an agenda for tackling climate change in ASEAN to be discussed at November's 13th ASEAN Summit
Since developing nations were not expected to abide by the Kyoto Protocol, it is not surprising that most of them, ASEAN states included, have failed to take global climate change seriously. Badly maintained buses continue to belch black exhaust fumes across the cities of the region, plans are made for even more coal-fired plants and the seas are looted for whatever treasures can be immediately sold, with little if any consideration of the consequences. However, ignoring the impositions facing developed countries will no longer be an option for ASEAN since successors to the Kyoto Protocol will insist that all countries must play their part, which is essential if India and China are to be brought into a multilateral carbon trading system, as they must be.
At the 10th Informal ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on the Environment, held recently in Bangkok (September 5th-7th, 2007), ministers noted that the region has been facing unusual weather issues that could be related to global climate change and, hence, the emission of carbon products into the atmosphere. These problems include the floods that have recently been experienced across ASEAN, unexpected droughts and even the seemingly sudden increase in the number of earthquakes afflicting Southeast Asia. New research suggests that earthquake activity may be stimulated by the loss of the ice shelf in Antarctica, which is disappearing at an unprecedented and almost unbelievable rate. Earthquakes have rarely affected this part of the world in the past but, ever since the Tsunami of December 26th, 2004, they seem to have become endemic. Now it seems there is a reason rather than just coincidence and the people of ASEAN will have to come to terms with the fact that they are now living in an earthquake zone.
All of these phenomena have arrived in addition to the more longstanding problem of transboundary haze: farmers find it convenient to burn stubble or unwanted plant growth in Autumn and this causes thick, choking smoke which means the citizens of Singapore, Chiang Mai and Kuala Lumpur either have to stay at home or else brave the streets wearing handkerchieves across their mouths or gas masks. Since the smoke from one country customarily affects the people of another, it is clearly important to ensure that cross-border agreements are meaningful and enforceable. Some success has been achieved by the governments of Malaysia and Singapore in working at the provincial level of Indonesia; rather less has been achieved by the Thai military government trying to make neighbouring Burma see sense. November’s 13th ASEAN Summit to be held in Singapore will see much to discuss.
