Are we entering the worst of all worlds, one in which financial turmoil and recession make it increasingly difficult for governments and the private sector to tackle a less immediate but more serious long-term threat to human welfare and stability in Asia: disastrous climate change?
Until recently, many advanced economies put controlling greenhouse gas emissions at the top of their reform agendas, after a series of reports from scientists advising the United Nations warned that growing levels of solar heat held in the atmosphere by a blanket of carbon dioxide and other man-made pollutants is intensifying extreme weather, melting glaciers, raising sea levels and aggravating drought and water shortages.
Today, however, the credit crisis and economic slowdown have forced a change of priorities. Recession is expected to reduce the rapid rise in global warming emissions. But it is likely to be only a temporary respite. The chief concern now is to revive the very economic growth that is contributing to climate change. Much of the growth is energy- and carbon-intensive. It is based on fossil fuels and converting forests to farmland.
The preoccupation with restoring loans for business investment, while spurring growth and consumption to create jobs, will make it even more difficult for the international community to reach a new agreement on curbing climate change by the end of next year, when a high-level meeting in Copenhagen is supposed to finalise a global warming deal to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. The longer and deeper the recession, the more difficult it will be to reach a deal on effective emission control. In the worst case, the talks might collapse, as happened last July with the global trade negotiations.
Yu Qingtai, China's climate change envoy, said last week he was 'fairly pessimistic' about prospects for the climate negotiations, adding that progress achieved so far was extremely limited. Yvo de Boer, the UN climate chief, admitted he was also worried about the outlook as governments focused on keeping their banks and economies afloat.
'There's a risk that less public money will be available in the north for co-operation with the south on technology and capacity building,' he said. 'Taken together, there's a risk that short-term concerns will prevail.'
