Sea level and poor countries

1990/07/01 Etxeberria, E. Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Giza zientziak

Countries with large stretches along the coast should begin to prepare to face the rise of the sea that will occur in the next decades. However, the leaders of the countries that make up the Commonwealth, according to the report discussed at the end of 1989, the construction of marine protections would be of high cost and consider it more appropriate to adopt other types of measures.

The strategies that can have the countries settled in the islands could be, for example, the introduction (use) of different types of crops of food products, the elevation of the pavements by means of the revision of standard measures for the construction and construction of houses more resistant to the wind and the creation of new lands by the occupation of zones of garbage and inner lakes. By protecting coral reefs and foreseeing land movement, countries can increase their role.

According to the report, governments can organize a "modest and progressive" emigration plan to relieve the pressure of the population. “All Commonwealth participants should review the sea level and sensitivity of national and local development policies to climate change, as well as avoid public and private investments,” he says.

The use of expensive marine protections to the problems posed by the increase in sea level is an economically unjustified response.

These countries will need technical assistance to carry out the review. If necessary, developed countries must pay through international aid agencies.

The report proposes an “action plan” composed of eight parties, in which strategies are divided into main parts. As outlined in this Plan, Commonwealth countries must cooperate to study the consequences of global warming due to the greenhouse effect. These countries will also have to urgently address climate research, the channeling of current climate change, and the dissemination of information on the need to adapt to these changes.

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Existing countries should receive financial support to study how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. One of the ways to achieve this reduction would be to improve the use of energy and promote its conservation. Poor countries will also need money to control these gases to develop new technologies.

The data given in the report itself on the expected climate changes in the coming decades is not so terrifying. Its recommendations are based on the idea that by 2030 the temperature of the Earth will rise between 1 and 2°C and the sea level will rise between 17 and 26 cm.

However, other scientists have foreseen terrifying changes. This new situation will mean an economic and social change for many countries.

In spite of the fact that the cost of reducing the greenhouse effect is assumed mainly by developed countries (which are the main generators of greenhouse gases), the need for strategies of adaptation to changes is especially necessary for developing countries” (Climate change) the negative consequences will be especially for the poorest countries, for their limited capacity of adaptation and greater dependence on natural systems”, says the report.

Among Commonwealth participants there are countries that could be most affected by the increase in sea level. In Bangladesh, for example, a rise of 1 meter of sea level would account for 15% of the land and affect 10 million people. In this group we would include Guyana, Maldives, Tuvalu, Tonga and Kiribati.

The President of Maldives was the first to proclaim in 1987 the need to conduct a special study to analyze the impact of climate change at the meeting held by the Commonwealth Heads of Government in Vancouver. The meeting asked whether these islands were suffering a terrible flood and whether the cause of this flood was the rise of sea level after the greenhouse effect.

In the Expert Memory, ironically, rigorous terms are used on the trials carried out by Maldives and other islands for the construction of maritime protection systems.

The governments of the small islands should analyze “with great care” the most important maritime protection proposals and launch them only once all other options have been exhausted.

Traditional technologies that countries have abandoned in the name of modernisation can once again become fashionable. According to the report, “in many cases local food and medicines, social forms and structures of construction are adequate to the needs of adaptation to the climate, but are not sufficiently used.”

Other adaptation strategies should be taken into account for river delta areas, where the greatest risk is Bangladesh.