Asia-Pacific, Climate Change, Development & Aid, Environment, Headlines

ASIA: For Mekong, Climate Change Is a Dev’t Issue – Experts

Lynette Lee Corporal

CHIANG RAI, Thailand , Oct 19 2009 (IPS) - Far from looking at climate change as a distant theoretical issue for scientists and environmentalists to dissect, countries that share the Mekong River would do well to realise that it is first and foremost a development issue that threatens to affect food, environment and everyday lives.

This view was aired by experts from different backgrounds – whether hydrologists, diplomats, community workers or water experts — at an Oct.16-17 meeting here of stakeholders in a development plan being mapped out by the intergovernmental Mekong River Commission (MRC) for the lower basin of the Mekong River.

The 4,880-kilometre Mekong River snakes its way through parts of South-east Asia, starting from its headwaters in Tibet, through Laos, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia and through Vietnam to the South China Sea.

"Climate change makes more sense when it is studied as part of development issues, like poverty reduction and sustainable development," Prof. Jorma Koponen of the Helsinki University of Technology said.

Unfortunately, Koponen added, the climate change phenomenon "has relatively little practical value or interest" in the region, preoccupied as everyone is about "more acute" socio-economic problems.

But the truth is that climate change is expected to affect water and flood flows and lead to more extreme weather, just a few of the impacts that experts expect to see.

These in turn affect flood cycles and fisheries, which are a key livelihood and source of protein for millions who depend on the lower Mekong basin for survival. The flood changes and cycles of the Tonle Sap in Cambodia, for instance, dictates the livelihoods of fishers and communities not just in that country but in neighbouring nations.

The Tonle Sap, South-east Asia's largest lake measuring 250 kilometres long and 100 km wide during the wet season, produces a quarter of a million tonnes of fisheres per year, half of all catch in Cambodia.

"Any shocks into the river system will likely push people below poverty line," explained Hossein Jalilian, director of the Cambodia Development Research Institute.

He added, "The Mekong River Basin covers over 85 percent of the country (Cambodia). Not surprisingly, most of the population, including the poor, lives in areas covered by the Basin, including Tonle Sap."

"It is a mistake to view climate change as just an environmental issue. I think characterising the issue as a development problem will help (jumpstart the sense of urgency)," said Geoffrey Blate, Greater Mekong Programme climate change coordinator for the environmental group World Wildlife Fund.

He added that all the Mekong countries have thrown climate change concerns into their respective environment ministries, which is not surprising but unfortunate.

"It should be in a powerful ministry that can crosscut and do the integration across various ministries. If you sideline it by putting it into the ministry of environment, which is the weakest ministry, then you're kind of missing the point," Blate said in an interview.

According to a 2007 World Bank study, Vietnam – home to the rich Mekong Delta — will be among the top five most impacted countries due to climate change.

Nguyen Van Sanh, deputy director of the Mekong Delta Development Research Institute at Vietnam's Can Tho University, said there are no simple solutions to the problem. Unfortunately, he said, current adaptation strategies continue to be hit-and-miss ventures.

The worst-case scenario, he added, is that more than a third of the Mekong Delta, where 17 million people reside and nearly half of Vietnam’s rice produce is grown, "could be submerged if sea levels rise by three feet".

"(With the rising sea levels), intrusion of saltwater and industrial pollution could contaminate much of the remaining Delta area," he added.

Climate change could reach up to the Central Highlands "where rising temperatures could put the coffee crop at risk", as well as to the northern Red River Delta, which is close to the capital Hanoi, "where large areas could be inundated".

Among the adaptation measures that he proposes include dike construction, development of more resilient crops, the establishment of flood and storm control committees, and building the capacity of communities.

Officials with the Vientiane-based MRC, which has Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam as members, said that the organisation has already begun research on climate change impact on the Mekong River at different levels.

According to its climate change primer, the information gathered by MRC researchers about the Basin Development Plan "is being overlaid with climate change modeling to try and predict how the river will change and how that will affect people on it".

But environmental and local activists said that until they really see concrete action plans, they would adopt a wait-and-see attitude.

Pham Quang Tu, director of the Vietnam-based non-government organisation Consultancy on Development, asked why people living in the lower Mekong basin were taking all the responsibility in mitigating and adapting to impending climate change impact.

"What about those people who are responsible for climate change? We need to know exactly how the MRC can contribute to the process of reducing the flooding of the Mekong Delta," he said.

"I don't feel my questions were answered concretely enough by the speakers in this forum. We want to see a clear vision and action, not merely plans," he added.

"It seems that they're considering it as just another issue. I think we're seeing the impact of bureaucrats and technocrats on (the) decision-making (process)," said Marty Bergoffen, an environmental lawyer with the non-governmental group Earth Rights International.

"They feel it's their duty to remain neutral and they don't see their own biases against action," he said, adding that he is not optimistic about climate change being included in the Mekong’s basin plan anytime soon. "We're doomed."

Bergoffen added that it is only when millions of people get personally affected by a big flood or typhoon or earthquake that everyone will start to wake up. "Until then, I don't really think we'll see much change."

For his part, Blate finds it encouraging that the MRC is quite open to engaging all stakeholders on Mekong river issues, including climate change, and creating mitigation and adaptation models for it.

"The question is, are these models good enough to be able to incorporate extreme events?" he asked.