Workshop on decentralisation and climate change :

Public awareness vital to overcome climate change effects

By Anuradha KODAGODA

It is a well known fact that climate change is one of the topics which has the least priority especially in third world countries. Even through the media, the topic of climate change is not addressed. Unlike in European countries, the developing country's societies are highly influenced by its political atmosphere and it is obvious that topics such as social welfare and environmental protection receive the least priorities.

Nevertheless, is climate change, a topic which we can ignore? Adverse effects of climate change is not any one country's fault, nor any one country's responsibility. Though we are relatively small in population and also with the industrialisation, we can't ignore the fact that we too are equally responsible for this matter. It requires sacrifices from everyone.

When considering this timely topic, the effort taken by the UN Habitat to create awareness by alerting the communities and the precautions they have taken through various projects which operated in the country, cannot be ignored.

The recent workshop on Decentralisation and Climate Change jointly organised by United Nations Human Settlement Program (UN Habitat) and Management Resources for Good Governance (MaRGG) brought together decision-makers, practitioners and stakeholders to share and explore the country situations and implement successful decentralisation approaches of sub-national and local government to adopt participatory local initiatives to address the climate change issue.

The main dialogue was based on the styles and scope of decentralisation processes and climate change of Sri Lanka and seven selected countries in the region namely Cambodia, Lao DPR, Myanmar, Nepal, the Philippines, the Pacific Islands and Vietnam.

"The main reason for addressing the climate change is to prepare cities and local governments for climate change and also to support the urban communities and sectors through infrastructure adjustments which should be adjusted to prevent climate change. However, this particular workshop is to elaborate the role of local government and national government linkage and that's why the workshop is under the banner of 'decentralisation and Climate Change'.

However, it is not much to promote decentralisation but only to understand the issues in a meaningful way where the local government can adapt to international climate change policies, and at the same time adapting with national global policy and strategy to make sure that the local government cities and towns are prepared for climate change and they operate according to a national framework," talking exclusively to the Sunday Observer Bernhard Barth, Human Settlements Officer, Training and Capacity Building Branch (TCBB), Global Division of UN Habitat said. "In addition we need to develop right communication at all levels of the government with its all divisions of communities which we feel as lacking at the moment. For ages climate change has been identified only as an international issue and not as a local issue, however I think it's now slowly changing and people are trying to understand this as a national issue.

"In Sri Lanka so far we have been working primarily in Negombo and Batticaloa and recently started working in six cities. The local government is very much interested and they want us to locate in war and tsunami-affected areas. Although it's nothing to do with climate change we do awareness programs for natural disasters. Although the local government is quite interested in engaging with us, for them it's still a challenge when developing comprehensive plans which goes hand in hand with their current development plans. However, by working closely with local government of Sri Lanka we hope to fulfil the objectives of preparing towns and cities for climate change," Bernhard said.

It is quite important to introduce an education system which encourages collaborative problem solving and decision making and also a system to incorporate national level structures and decisions at the national level for simpler and more transparent incorporation at the local level are identified as an essential task.

Our life styles and consumption patterns determine our ecological footprint. With rapidly degrading environment, particularly in cities, caused by over-extraction of natural resources and excessive pollution, and threats caused by changing climate, there is an urgent need to re-think the way we live our lives. It is important to realise that little things we do can make a big difference for us as well as our planet.

There are more than enough commonalities around the region which are suffering from problems such as lack of clean drinking water, highly polluted rivers, unmanaged waste, deteriorating air quality and poor energy supply. Most of us either blame everyone else except ourselves for getting us in the situation or simply shrug our shoulders and ignore. What we do not realise is that when pointing a finger at someone, three fingers are actually pointing back at us. Many of us also talk about solutions such as 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle) of waste, recycling and rainwater harvesting, but when it comes to practising what we preach we often shy away.

It is time to 'walk the talk' and take action at individual as well as household and community level.