|
The environmentalists and development economists are
increasingly teaming up. Convergence of climate
change concerns and issues facing poor nations
present a new angle to both tackle and be worried
over the vicious cycle of poverty that grips over a
billion people.
The United Nations (UN) affirmed this strong
connection with two branches, the environment and
development programmes, jointly releasing the annual
Human Development Report focusing on climate change.
While the 400-page document paints an alarming
picture of the effects of human activity most in the
climatology field agree are affecting global weather
patterns, there is also reason to see hope for a
fresh wave of development activities to blossom out
of the fervour for action the report both affirms
and helps to sustain.
For Ethiopia, there are a lot of potential benefits
to the world realising that climate change will most
severely affect poor nations, especially those with
food insecurity and variable rain patterns, that
would be exacerbated by severe land condition and
weather shifts. The necessarily emerging efforts
both to mitigate and adapt to climate change, on the
whole, present huge costs to the developed world
whose economy is structured on emissions intensive
production, but show room for poor nations to
capture the business developing around these
processes of change.
From carbon markets where credits are bought and
sold for CO2 production to higher valuations of
forest resources and specific agricultural products
like organic foods, Ethiopia should see room for
development along green lines with the aid of rich
nations who have an interest and mutual need to see
this happen.
However, like all dynamic processes that have new
components thrown into the mix, efforts to make
green development count for the poor majority here
will take innovative approaches to creating
equitable supply chains. Otherwise, the
beneficiaries of the new rush to be innovative on
global cooperation to decrease environmental change
will continue to be the ones at the top of the
current production regime.
Take for instance the huge push to develop biofuel
production. On the surface, the planting and
exporting of such crops as castor seeds, palm oil
and jathropa that has been widely publicised appears
to be a prime example of a poor country with
abundant land and cheap labour exploiting this
comparative advantage to satisfy rich nations’ new
demands and creating jobs and income in the process.
However, a closer look reveals that indirect effects
and lack of capitalisation on full supply chain
capture results in damages to other areas of
development efforts and missed opportunities.
Following on the back of success stories in Brazil
where a dynamic biofuel industry that has both
generated income and reduced C02 emissions is in
place, many countries have sought to duplicate the
experiences. However, attempts have often neglected
the fact that much of the benefit to the country is
the result of the processing that is done
domestically and supply and end use by Brazilians
themselves.
Without full establishment of complete value chains
domestically, the farmers are in jeopardy of more
cheap labour exploitation similar to the many
criticisms that are levied at the coffee industry
where the distribution giants reap profits on the
sweat of the farmers in least developed nations.
Moreover, the land devoted to biofuel production is
sometimes diverted from agricultural production in
food insecure countries or cleared of valuable and
environmentally critical tree cover.
It is crucial that government pushes through tax
incentives and works together with the business and
aid communities that ultimately demand biofuel to
ensure that Ethiopia is the beneficiary of
production.
The UN report also highlights the devastating
effects of shifts in rain patterns that create food
insecurity in new and different areas. In other
areas flooding can occur do to the same changes. The
upshot of this development is that new
infrastructure will become especially necessary for
certain areas and thus a case needs to be made to
donor groups to help in its development here.
Indirect benefits to more roads or irrigation
projects are many and varied in who they accrue to.
Ethiopia has the potential to benefit most in the
power sector where its vast and environmentally
friendly hydroelectric resources remain untapped. It
is already seeing the possibilities that come from
pushing this sector with export revenue and
increased regional integration on the horizon.
It is the future that the UN report focuses on. It
paints a bleak picture if action is not taken
immediately to combat effects. The prospects for
Ethiopia and many developing nations in the next few
years are bright if they can capture the fervour now
existing.
Carbon markets, currently most highly progressed in
Europe, are the wave of the future where rich
countries that seek to decrease overall emissions
push energy efficient projects in the underdeveloped
parts of the world. At present, there is a low level
of benefit capture here as transaction costs are
prohibitively high for negotiation of the
project-based markets. Efforts to develop
cooperation between the industrialised and poor
countries to lubricate the channels of carbon market
development into a system of extended programmes
must occur.
Most of all, what the Human Development report
signals is that there is a will and funds available
to make environmental programmes work hand-in-hand
with development efforts. Negotiations with the aid
community must be keenly aware of the potential and
a necessity to integrate these approaches.
|
