Shobhakar Dhakal, Director of the Global Carbon Project, Tokyo, Japan, leads a flagship activity on urban and regional carbon management and is involved in synthesis activities on various aspects of the carbon cycle. He is also Visiting Associate Professor of the Graduate School of Environmental Studies of the Nagoya University, Japan.

The seminar began with a  background of the Global Carbon Project, its partners,  the flagship research it undertook recently, and the 4 major areas it is active in: viz., water, food, carbon, and human health.

The presentation highlighted the role of carbon, main emission sources, contribution from the Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry (LULUCF) sector, contribution of natural sinks, the global carbon budget and the challenges that lay ahead for both developed and developing countries.

Climate change has now become a fact and will increase in the years ahead according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's WR1 of 2007.

Increase in anthropogenic carbon emissions is demonstrated by the increase in ppm (parts per million) since preindustrial revolution.  In the year 1750 emission was 280 ppm and in 2002 it reached 382.7 ppm. Though this increase comes from different sources, the  majority is attributed  to increasing fossil fuel usage. While the growth rate of ppm between 2000 to 2007 was 2.2 ppm/yr, emission from fossil fuels increased 4 times.

The IPCC predicted several scenarios, with the worst case being that of intensive fossil fuel usage. Unfortunately, despite most countries agreeing to the Kyoto Protocol, the scenario shows that we are not doing enough across the world.

The global share of pollution from developing countries is increasing. This puts tremendous pressure on developing countries to also cut emissions. However,  among the  developing countries, majority of the pollution is emitted from Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC). China became the largest emitter in 2006 overtaking the USA, and India is going to overtake Russia soon to become the third highest emitter. But the argument developing countries  are putting forward is that historically, their cumulative emission is still very low when compared to the developed countries. However, looking at the annual emission increment, China almost has a 60% increase in GHG emission. Developing countries have also implemented further policies to reduce emission. For instance, Japan announced 70% reduction in emissions  to be achieved in the forthcoming years.

Drivers of emissions are best understood by correlating emission with economic growth, applying technology, and population growth. While much of the developed countries have lowered or reduced the carbon intensity, China and India are continuing emission with little adoption of cleaner technology that reduces carbon intensity. Compared to China, India hasn't made much progress on reducing carbon intensity.

Sector wise,  carbon emission from LULUCF is much less than from the energy sector. But, whatever emission is occurring, is occurring mainly from Asian countries with tropical forests as they have higher levels of biomass per ha (high carbon density per ha). Asia is now contributing more than Latin America  to the overall emission in the form of emission from deforestation.

Of the world's  total emissions, 46% remains in atmosphere, 29% is captured and stored in land and terrestrial ecosystems, and 26% in oceans. This raises the importance of understanding the natural sinks  because 55% of emission is reduced from natural sinks without abatement cost. Using the ETS (Emission Trading System ) rate for emission reduction, this is worth 0.5 trillion US$. The catch here is that, we have to make extra efforts to be able to maintain the natural sinks as data has shown that the capacity of natural sinks has decreased by 5%. This is called weakening of the sinks and is mainly caused by ozone layer depletion and climate change.

Climate Change will happen anyhow but we can only reduce its effects by selecting different targets. The IPCC has come up with different  mechanisms for reduction of emissions. The bottom line is, any delay will increase the cost of abatement as well as damage. This is also in line with the Stern Review 2006. Right now most discussions are around limiting the temperature increase to 2-3 degree C. Even this effort at reducing the temperature increase will require continuous support for adaptation strategies, especially in developing countries, which cannot be relaxed. Developing countries need to know when and by how much they have to adapt to the scenario.               

For reducing emission, the developed as well as the developing countries (OECD) must work together  for cutting emissions and for mitigating the adverse impacts of emissions. This is also in line with the Stern Review.

The global simulation model on climate change developed by the GCP shows the Himalaya region as a hotspot. The intensity with which Himalaya region is affected is the same as the Arctic region. The model, however, showed slower impact for Europe.  

The challenge lies in mitigating emission through deep cuts, based on scientific data. Kyoto Protocol was based on politics and the reductions were not scientifically based; it is expected that the post Kyoto scenario will be more scientifically based. It seems the current discourse is more scientific than the previous one. Also, it is expected that now there is technology to allow for deeper cuts, and as emphasised earlier, we need to strengthen natural sinks (relevant to Himalaya region). In conclusion, the global emission has not slowed down since 2000; it is following the IPCC worse case scenario. Developing countries are emitting more. While the capacity of natural sinks is decreasing. Therefore there is an urgent need to act now.

i4d team is grateful to Bhaskar, Tek Jung Mahat and Dan Boom of Asia Pacific Mountain Network at ICIMOD who took notes, reviewed the copy of this extensive presentation, and summarised it for the readers of i4d. For more details of the seminar presentation, please visit http://www.icimod.org/?page=331