Source: IIED
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4g9bbcSvuM
Date: 11/06/2014
Event: Saleemul Huq about President Obama: "we want to use him to attack the deniers"
Credit: IIED
People:
[Speech by Saleemul Huq at the UN climate talks in Bonn.]
Saleemul Huq: [I'd like to] thank the organisers for inviting me here, and to tell you a little bit about who I am. I'm Director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development in Bangladesh, I'm also a Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Environment and Development in London, where I've been for the last 14 years. I'm also in the UNFCCC process, an advisor to the Least Developed Countries group of negotiators, particularly on the issue of loss and damage, you know, I was very much involved in supporting them during the negotiations in Warsaw, where we got the Warsaw International Mechanism.
Having said that, what I'm going to say now is not on behalf of many of them, but on my own behalf, so... I speak on the record, but it's from myself, for myself and not on behalf of any of the other groups. And I have one message and four building blocks or tipping points to add. The message is, as Yeb just said: I think this idea of taxing the polluters and making them pay - the time has come. It's not a new idea, it's an old idea - polluter-pay principle is a very old one, but in the carb- in the climate change arena, we've not been able to apply it yet, successfully. I think we may well be able to do it now, and this is a very good attempt at doing that.
And I'll explain why. And I'll do so by saying - mentioning four tipping points that I think bring us nearer to making this possible. The first one has already been alluded to, is a successful agreement on loss and damage in Warsaw. The mechanism has been fought for, for many years, by the small island states, the Least Developed Countries, and in Warsaw we succeeded in getting the mechanism, very much I think associated with Yeb Sano's personal intervention at that time - going on fast, having the Typhoon Haiyan happening at that time, all culminating in a successful agreement on loss and damage, something that the Annex One countries have successfully prevented us from doing for 20 years. Brought it up every year for 20 years, and they never let it happen - we got it in Warsaw. Big tipping point.
Second tipping point is the IPCC 5th Assessment Report, which came out just recently, particularly Working Group II Report, which reinforces the fact that we are headed for 4 degrees. And 4 degrees is very bad for everybody. Nobody wins, in 4 degrees. Poor suffer the most, but even the rich suffer, and we are seeing that happen right now. The impacts of Hurricane Sandy, in the northeast in the US - well over $50 billion. The drought in California now - well into the tens of billions. In the UK, where I live, they had a - what, in Bangladesh, where I'm from, we would consider a tiny little flood, last summer - £1 billion loss and damage, in the UK. Tiny little flood, and half of this happens during the day, and goes away at night [audience laughter] but little flood - $1 billion [sic] damage.
So it's coming home to roost. Loss and damage is universal - all countries are going to suffer, including the rich. And they're going to have to deal with it. Major lesson coming out of IPCC Working Group II, AR5. We didn't have it before. Before, it was all about developing countries are going to be the ones that are going to be affected, and it's all about: how do we help them? We haven't done much on that. But now, everybody's going to be affected, including the rich. They do not escape. That's a big leap - quantum leap in our understanding of the knowledge and the science of what's going to happen.
The third tipping point is the very recent new regulations implemented in the United States by the Federal Government on power plants that close. [Or "coal"?] And I think this is a tipping point - it may not be a huge difference, in terms of the mitigation of greenhouse gases, but it's a significant political tipping point in the following sense, and I wrote a blog on this after it was announced by President Obama in his government, in which I praised them.
And somebody wrote in response to my blog, saying "He could have done this six years ago", and that's absolutely right. The law was there - the day after he was inaugurated for his first term, he could have enacted this same law that he did, the other day - six years later. But he didn't have the courage to do it - now he has the courage to do it, now he's going to do it. It's a good sign. It's a tipping point, that he's willing to take on the deniers, which he wasn't six years ago. So now we have him on our side, we want to use him to attack the deniers. And this is one of those forms - we now attack the people who are causing the problem.
And the final tipping point is this report that identifies these 90-plus companies that have made trillions of dollars out of selling us a pollutant. Okay? They must pay, they must pay the victims of that pollution. And this is a way of getting them to do that. So when Julie-Anne shared a draft report with me, said "I like everything, I don't like the title. I don't like the word 'Carbon Majors' - doesn't mean anything to me. I want them called 'carbon criminals'."
That's what they are. That's an accurate description of what they are. And I'll explain why, using the words that Yeb Sano just said. It's a combination of avarice and arrogance. They know they are extracting and selling a pollutant. They know this pollutant causes harm. They are trying to stop any actions against them polluting, even though they know there's harm - so in their own minds, they are willing to do a criminal act, they're continuing with that criminal act - we must make them pay. We must not let them get away with it.
And it's the responsibility of governments all over the world - rich countries, poor countries, wherever these companies are domiciled, the governments have to hold them to account and make them pay for the pollutants that they are spewing out and making profits off of. If they make profits out of it, then they can afford to pay a little bit for the victims of that.
And I'll end by just mentioning the victims, as Julie-Anne mentioned, teed up the question of where did the money - where should the money go to? At the moment, around the world, the most vulnerable communities who are affected by the impacts of climate change and are feeling the losses and damages as we speak right now, are organising themselves.
In fact, just a few weeks ago, in Kathmandu in Nepal, we organised the 8th International Conference on Community-based Adaptation, which is a sort of a term used for these vulnerable groups working around the world. We had over 400 people from over 60 countries come for seven days to Nepal. The first three days they spent in the field, they spent with vulnerable communities, seeing what they were doing, looking at their vulnerability and the adaptation actions they were already doing, and then another four days in the capital city, sharing amongst themselves.
I recommend that you look at the website - there's a lot of interesting things that came out. They came out with something called the Kathmandu Declaration, which does three things. It demands that global funding for climate change - at least half of that should go for adaptation. At the moment, the numbers are 93-7 - 93% mitigation, 7% adaptation. Not acceptable. It has to be at least half for adaptation. And then for the money that goes for adaptation, at least half of that should go to the most vulnerable communities, and we know who they are and we need to get to them.
And that message is not just for the global community, it's for national communities as well. National governments have to ensure that money for adaptation is - at least half of that goes to the most vulnerable communities in those countries. And one of the reasons which goes to this meeting in Nepal, is the fact that the government of Nepal has actually made a policy decision to allocate not just 50% but 80% of global funds for adaptation to the local level.
And they've also done a very innovative local-level activity called the NAPA - a local plan of adaptation that devolves the planning of the adaptation to the local level and now resourcing them with finances. So we think that's a good example for many other countries to follow. So there's no doubt of good places to spend the money, we now have to raise the money, and I think this is a good place to get it. Thank you. [Audience applause.]