Sri Lanka should be given sufficient incentives to preserve its tropical rainforests for the benefit of all humanity, Ambassador Palitha Kohona told the world body.
“From Sri Lankas perspective’s, the Island’ s Permanent Representative said, “tropical rainforests are a major carbon absorption mechanism.”
Furthermore, deforestation of these forests is responsible for increasing carbon emissions of the world. If we are to preserve these forests for the benefit of all humanity, sufficient incentives must be provided to these forest hosting countries to maintain them.
Speaking on the Agenda item ˜53 Sustainable Development” the Lankan Representative, pointed out that his country, despite its geographic limits as an island, and its high population density was still maintaining over 20% forest cover. These forests are a resource that is available for exploitation, but if this resource is not to be utilized for development, as was done by developed countries in their rush to develop, and “practical measures must be made available to preserve forests”, he said.
One possibility we can suggest, Ambassador Kohona said, is to ascribe a carbon value to these forests, enabling that carbon value to be traded in the global carbon market.
Observing that the achievement of sustainable development goals requires a cohesive and holistic approach at all levels, he spoke in detail the work being carried out by Sri Lanka’s National Council for Sustainable Development (NCSD), which he said, was set up last year.
Giving a detailed overview of Sri Lanka’s efforts on climate change front, Ambassador Kohona said the NCSD is the apex body for the development of strategies and the implementation and monitoring of sustainable development programmes.
The NCSD encompasses the themes of Clean Air Everywhere, Saving the Fauna, Flora and Eco Systems, Meeting the Challenge of Climate Change, Wise Use of the Coastal Belt and the Sea Around, Responsible use of the Land Resources, Doing Away with Dumps, Water for All and Always, Green Cities for Health and Prosperity, Greening the Industries and Knowledge for Right Choices.
The envoy told the world body that as the Green Lanka Programme has been finalized as the Road Map for achieving sustainable development of his country. The Action Plan was designed to meticulously explore short, medium, and long-term solutions to meet current and emerging economic and environmental challenges. The ten-year Action Plan covering ten thrust areas was prepared through extensive deliberations with the relevant ministries and all other stakeholders, including the private sector. The Action Plan will ensure sustainable development with major emphasis on addressing energy and climate change issues and other environmental challenges.
About the private sector in Sri Lanka, he said the private enterprise has enthusiastically embraced the new policies of the government for sustainable development. In fact, the Lanka produced garments are marketed in the US under the slogan “Garments without Guilt” in recognition of the principle of ecologically friendly production. Sri Lankan production facilities are world leaders in water conservation.
Here is the text of the address on the Agenda Item: 53 Sustainable Development
Mr. Chairperson,
We note with appreciation, the reports of the Secretary-General under Agenda Item 53. My delegation also associates itself with the Statement made by the distinguished representative of Sudan as the Chair of the G-77?& China.
The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that Climate Change poses an unequivocal challenge for human development and even existence. Climate Change will impact on all, in particular, developing countries. We are concerned that the current global development model needs a paradigm shift to face the unprecedented challenge of Climate Change. Finding a new development model, based on green consciousness, that can accommodate diverse cultural dimensions and developmental, needs may be the way to sustain the future of humankind.
Though the initial and burdensome anthropogenic increase of the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere could be directly attributed to the development approach of industrialized countries, small developing countries will be most particularly vulnerable as the problem intensifies. We believe that our approach to addressing this issue must be based on recognition of the principle of common but differentiated responsibility and respective capabilities, as well as the historic responsibility of developed countries for having given rise to this problem. After all it was the development model adopted by industrialized countries that caused this massive accumulation of GHGs in the atmosphere occupying the carbon space of developing countries, which never had the opportunity or capacity to use up their own carbon space.
We believe that developed countries must offset their resulting carbon debt by footing the major part of the cost of adaptation by developing countries. Adaptation, both by developed and developing countries is essential. Additionally, current patterns of fossil fuel consumption of developed countries result in a vast ecological debt that is being inherited by developing countries and all future generations. Considering this responsibility, industrialized developed countries should boldly cut their emission levels, based on per-capita emissions criteria. Some of the proposals discussed by the G-8 countries offer a workable starting point. We welcome the comments made by Japan earlier today.
From Sri Lanka’s perspective, tropical rainforests are a major carbon absorption mechanism. Furthermore, deforestation of these forests is responsible for increasing carbon emissions of the world. If we are to preserve these forests for the benefit of all humanity, sufficient incentives must be provided to these forest hosting countries to maintain them. Sri Lanka, despite its geographic limits as an island, and its high population density, still maintains over 20% forest cover. These forests are a resource that is available for exploitation, but if this resource is not to be utilized for development, as was done by developed countries in their rush to develop, practical measures must be made available to preserve forests. One possibility we can suggest is to ascribe a carbon value to these forests, enabling that carbon value to be traded in the global carbon market. We fully endorsed the work of UN REDD of which Sri Lanka has been admitted as a new member. Sri Lanka will play an active role in achieving the goals of REDD.
The achievement of sustainable development goals, while addressing climate change, requires a cohesive and holistic approach at all levels. In Sri Lanka, to meet this challenge, the National Council for Sustainable Development (NCSD) was established last year for the development of strategies and the implementation and monitoring of sustainable development programmes.
The National Action Plan “the Green Lanka Programme” has been finalized as the Road Map for achieving sustainable development of my country. The Action Plan was designed to meticulously explore short, medium, and long-term solutions to meet current and emerging economic and environmental challenges. The ten-year Action Plan covering ten thrust areas was prepared through extensive deliberations with the relevant ministries and all other stakeholders, including the private sector. The Action Plan will ensure sustainable development with major emphasis on addressing energy and climate change issues and other environmental challenges. The NCSD encompasses the themes of Clean Air Everywhere, Saving the Fauna, Flora and Eco Systems, Meeting the Challenge of Climate Change, Wise Use of the Coastal Belt and the Sea Around, Responsible use of the Land Resources, Doing Away with Dumps, Water for All and Always, Green Cities for Health and Prosperity, Greening the Industries and Knowledge for Right Choices. The private sector in Sri Lanka has enthusiastically embraced the new policies of the government in this respect. Sri Lanka produced garments are marketed in the US under the slogan “Garments without Guilt” in recognition of the principle of ecologically friendly production. Sri Lankan production facilities are world leaders in water conservation.
We have formulated the National Cleaner Production Policy and Strategy (NCPPS) to promote ecologically sustainable production and consumption practices throughout the country. This mechanism is supplementary to the mandate of the National Cleaner Production Centre (NCPC), which is a public-private partnership in Sri Lanka assisted by UNIDO. The Centre conducts awareness and training programmes to introduce new tools and techniques related to Environmental Management. The NCPC conducts an annual Cleaner Production Auditor Training Programme to promote the culture of cleaner production among industrialists.
Sri Lanka is recognised as a good performer under the Montreal protocol to the Ozone Convention.
The study on “Development of Market Based Instruments for Environment Management in Sri Lanka” (MBIs) was completed last year with the assistance of UNEP & Global Programme of Action (GPA). The recommendations in the report are being meaningfully transformed into a broad array of policy tools such as pollution taxes, permits, deposits, environment conservation levies and subsidy reforms. The Vehicle Emission Testing (VET) Programme to control air pollution has already been implemented by establishing Testing Centres countrywide to carry out mandatory vehicle emission testing.
In order to address the cross sectoral nature of the major environmental challenges caused by Climate Change and to fulfill its commitments under the UNFCCC & the Kyoto Protocol, a Climate Change Secretariat has been established in Sri Lanka to adopt a comprehensive national approach to address the climate change challenge. The National Advisory Committee on Climate Change (NACCC) was established in the country to integrate diverse view points of the principle actors. The Sri Lanka Carbon Fund (SLCF) was established last year by a Cabinet Decision as a public-private partnership under the Companies Act to promote Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) activities.
The SAARC region, which hosts 1/4th of the global population, faces a range of grave threats from Climate Change, including coastal area inundation, coral bleach, severe droughts, unseasonal flooding, glacier melt, insect infestations etc. The threat to agriculture in the region is severe. The SAARC Action Plan and the Dhaka Declaration on Climate Change and the Colombo Summit Declaration last year emphasized the need for restoring harmony with nature, and drawing on ancient South Asian cultural values and traditions of environmental responsibility and sustainability. The Declarations stressed the need for close cooperation for capacity building, development of CDM projects and the promotion of programs for advocacy and awareness on climate change. The?SAARC Member States have agreed to adopt Climate Change as the key theme of the Sixteenth SAARC Summit in Thimphu next year. The SAARC will publish a compendium of SAARC National Plans of action on climate change prior to the UNFCCC Copenhagen Summit. Further, the ongoing SAARC consultations between the apex environmental management and pollution control agencies will be accelerated to reach an early agreement.
Sri Lanka, as a Party to the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Cartegena Protocol on Biosafety, encourages bio-prospecting research against a strong legal framework with mechanisms to access genetic resources and equitable benefit sharing. We have initiated action to formulate a domestic legal framework and a survey on biotechnology and bio-safety in the process of launching the National Biosafety Framework in accordance with the Cartegena Protocol. My government looks forward to the COP-10 of the CBD in Nagoya next year, coinciding with the International Year of Biodiversity.
Sri Lanka experienced the brunt of the catastrophic Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004. Since then my country has made extensive strides in developing a systematic and scientific approach to disaster management. With the support of development partners and friends Sri Lanka has devised institutional frameworks and introduced a holistic strategy to place disaster risk management at the centre of national development planning. The National Council for Disaster Management (NCDM) was established as the lead agency for disaster risk management with the Disaster Management Centre (DMC) as the executive agency under a separate Ministry. The entire institutional mechanism was introduced by a Parliamentary Act with clear mandates. We have adopted a 10-year Road Map for Disaster Risk Management at the national level and have participated in the SAARC regional framework. In addition to setting up a SAARC network of weather stations to monitor weather patterns across the Member States, the South Asian regional Agreement on the Natural Disaster Rapid Response Mechanism is expected to be effective from next year. These multiple approaches are compatible with the Hyogo Framework for Action of 2005-2015 and the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction.
- Asian Tribune -
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