Environment protection and sustainable development:

Foreign debt should be written off against environmental loans - Champika Ranawaka

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With Sri Lanka assuming the chair of the Vienna Convention, the country is in a unique position to formulate policies on environment protection at a global level. Though Sri Lanka is a negligible player in the international arena on environment protection, it has already achieved major milestones by promoting concepts such as Environmental Debt, Atmospheric Justice and the Sustainable Development Index which have already gained currency at international level.

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Interviewed by Indeewara THILAKARATHNE

The concept of Environment debt, which Sri Lanka presented at a UN conference chaired by Al Gore last September, is that developed nations owe a lot to developing countries for exploiting their environment. Now, the majority of the nations have endorsed this concept said Minister of Environment and Natural Resources Patali Champika Ranawaka in an interview with Sunday Observer.

Excerpts

Q: What is the idea behind the concept of environment debt which you presented at the UN conference which was chaired by Algore?

A: The Environment Debt (ED) is the debt that developing countries including Sri Lanka owe from the developed world which exploits environment of the developing countries without their consent.

Sri Lanka is to request the developed world for writing off the foreign debt against environment debt. For instance, last year Sri Lanka paid a some 1,270 million dollars and the environment debt Sri Lanka owes from developed countries for the last year, is 1350 million dollars. Therefore, in actual terms, Sri Lanka is not indebted to any country.

It is a well known fact that global warming has changed the weather patterns resulting in extremely ferocious rains and a prolonged period of harsh droughts and that also contributed to lessen the global food production.

The damage incurred in many parts of the globe due to climate change is estimated at over 1500 millions of dollars.

The aggregate debt that the developing countries owe to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) is only 350 million dollars which is one fifth of the damage caused by developed countries. Sri Lanka, for the first time, highlighted this gross injustice at international forums. Now the idea has gained currency and countries in Latin America, Africa and even in the European Union have completely endorsed the idea.

Q: You have also mooted the idea of Atmospheric Justice. The idea that atmosphere should be equally divided among the nations has been endorsed and included in the SAARC declaration. What are the impact of these new concepts and the Adaptation Fund you proposed to set up on the life in developing countries?

A: The proposal for an Adaptation Fund (AF) which Sri Lanka made has now been accepted and Sri Lanka will continue to lobby further for the establishment of the AF. The importance of an Adaptation Fund is that it can assist countries to adapt to climate change. The AF should also pay for the damages caused by climate change.

For instance, the AF should pay for the countries that are in danger of going under sea due to the rising sea level and those which are severely damaged by floods and cyclones. Another step Sri Lanka has taken in this regard is to introduce a Sustainable Human Development Index (SHDI).

Q: How does the newly introduced Sustainable Human Development Index (SHDI) differ from the conventional Human Development Index?

A: For the first time, Sri Lanka has introduced SHDI to highlight the shortcomings in the conventional Human Development Index. For instance, economic progress of a country is determined in terms of per capita income.

However, the per capita income does not take poverty, debt and environment factors into consideration. For instance Sri Lanka has fourteen percent of pristine forests and twenty three per cent of forests which are not in pristine condition. However, either the contribution the forests made to the environment or their value has not been evaluated. We have proposed to evaluate the contribution under seven areas including the value of wood, flora and fauna, the ability to absorb carbon and soil conservation.

So we have concluded that these forests make a 530 million dollars (58 billion rupees) worth of contribution annually which has not been counted in the GDP. Only one billion rupees is spent on the up-keeping the Department of Forests. For example, Iceland has the highest per capita income which is 53000 dollars. But the amount of money it borrowed is one seventh of its GDP and the Iceland Government was declared bankrupt. It is also the first in Human Development Index. We have proposed several factors including poverty, education, health and per capita income.

In addition we have proposed ecological footprint and bio-capacity. Ecological Footprint (EF) is that how many global hectares are needed for a person to meet one's requirements; the land needed to produce one's food, energy, water and for garbage disposal.

At a global level, one person needed 2.23 global hectares to continue with the present lifestyle; in Sri Lanka EF is one hectare, 9.6 hectares in America.

The bio-capacity is the ability of a country to produce its own resources to satisfy the basic human requirements and to continue with the present lifestyle. At global level, the bio-capacity per person is 1.78 hectares and it is obvious world is facing a scarcity of resources. That means the resources for this century will be finished off by 2080. In Sri Lanka the bio-capacity is 0.04 hectares. Sri Lanka has only 0.04 hectares whereas it needs one hectare.

In America, the bio-capacity is 4.6 hectares. If the USA is to continue its present lifestyle, it needs a further landmass of the size of USA. However, some countries like Australia and Malaysia have bio-capacity. So this has been taken as a factor. Climate Index which has been included in the SHDI, primarily measures the amount of carbon that a person can release to the atmosphere.

According to international convention, one person can release 2170 kg of carbon for the year 2008. It is 600kg in Sri Lanka and it is 24000 kg of carbon in America.

So the America will have to cut down its emission by ninety per cent. USA has developed at the expense of developing countries. This is the reason for introducing the SHDI.