Perhaps the most significant outcome of the Bali Conference for small islands nations is the formation of the Adaptation Fund.

Dev Nadkarni
It would be naïve to expect the Bali Conference on Climate Change to have been a spectacular success given the task of getting some 190 countries to agree on measures that could potentially have a profound impact on their economies and future growth strategies.

National interest –and not concern over the rapidly worsening global environmental situation—turned out to be the overriding factor at the conference. Not just with the United States, but also with fast developing economies like India who had their own arguments and counter arguments for disagreeing with the proposed cuts on carbon emissions in coming years.

The European Union proposed a 25 to 40 per cent reduction in green house gas emissions by 2020 but was objected to by the United States on the premise that this would prejudice negotiations over the next two years in the run up to drafting new protocols to replace Kyoto.

The US continues to be the world’s largest emitter of green house gases and any effort to curb it on a global scale without bringing the US to the negotiating table would be meaningless. Initially the EU tried to take a hard line by threatening to boycott the parallel summit that the US is hosting to address the emission issue from the point of view of developed nations if it didn’t agree to its proposals –but later changed tack.

Finally, in its anxiety to get the US to the negotiating table to address climate change after 2012, the EU, as also the rest of the world, agreed to drop the proposed reduction range from the Bali roadmap. In the circumstances, bringing the US to the party turned out to be a success even if the proposed targets had to be dropped from the final wordings of the roadmap.

So at the end of it all, the world has come out of the conference without a definitive parameter in terms of a quantitative range as a target to reduce emissions –even as a starting point for discussions-- in the lead up to the negotiations over the next couple of years. It is hard to see at this point in time how the negotiations will proceed without a target or parameter: there is not even one that is even deemed provisional as a guideline.

That was indeed a disappointment; but the sheer scale of the conference and the media coverage it received will undoubtedly help spread the awareness of climate change issues and will certainly help mobilise public pressure on the government of nearly every nation to agree to cut carbon emissions over the next two years. The talks are to start in April this year and will end with the adoption of a new treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol late next year in Copenhagen.

Some countries, though, voluntarily announced their own targets. Germany said that it would cut its emissions by as much as 40 per cent by the year 2020 –the upper end of the scale as originally suggested by the EU.

But perhaps the most significant outcome that has emerged at the end of the Bali Conference from the point of view of small islands nations is the formation of the Adaptation Fund.

The developed world agreed to launch the Adaptation Fund to help developing nations combat the increasingly evident effects of climate change –sea level rise being its most symptomatic impact in the case of the islands in general and the flat atolls in particular.

It is indeed a great start, though it is too early to see any consensus yet on how the funds for such a gigantic worldwide effort will ultimately be raised. An initial funding of just US$ 36 million is all that is available to the fund at the moment and there will be discussions underway soon to raise this to between $ 1 billion and 5 billion annually by 2030.

The fund, which will begin operations this year, will have a 16-member board and will be represented well by members from developing nations. Global organizations like the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility will be closely associated with the fund.

A major chunk of the funding in future years would be earmarked for developing technologies designed for bringing down green house gas emissions in the developing world.

But what will be of most relevance to the Pacific Island countries is that the funds will also be made available for financing projects like the building of sea walls as a foil against rising oceans that are beginning to encroach on scarce land by causing erosion –and rejuvenating natural barriers like mangroves.

The funding will afford more sensitive and widespread early warning systems across regions known to be prone to serious weather related disasters and help put in place improved water supply systems for drought areas, besides training local people in agricultural practices incorporating principles of conservation.

The fund will help developing countries fund programmes against deforestation –a major concern in the Pacific’s logging nations—but it is yet to spell out in what manner this will work. To begin with it will fund studies on the economic valuation of their tree cover.

This will likely lead to countries like Papua New Guinea and Fiji that have a considerable forest cover, to be able to sell their carbon offsets to developed countries from 2013 thanks to REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation in Developing countries), a pay and preserve scheme.

Discussions on other greenfield schemes like carbon capture and storage –that are essentially at a conceptual—were put off for a later date at the convention.

From the standpoint of the islands, this is a welcome change of climate --especially since they form the least powerful group in terms of financial resources and happen to be insignificant polluters compared to the developed nations –but unfortunately for them, happen to be the most affected and extremely vulnerable group.

The biggest outcome for them is the fact that their plight --and the urgency of addressing it-- has now taken centrestage like never before. Some words from the final draft are indeed encouraging, calling for the allocation of greater financial resources and investment for the most vulnerable among of the developing nations.

What now remains to be seen is what strategy the Pacific Islands region will come up with to push the envelope further and ensure they get a fair share of the attention --and of course the funds. And they must act fast because they will undoubtedly be vying for them with other island nations from across the world.