Rezaul Karim Chowdhury
Why there are the urgency and importance of the issues of “People Affected to Conflict and Disaster”,
i)Asia Pacific (AP) is the most effected region in respect of natural disasters, where world 80 % of natural disaster damages happened as there are high level of vulnerability due to poverty, less state capacity, less resilience and preparedness in community level.(ii) It is already forecasted by IPCC there will be increase level of natural disasters in future especially in AP region, which is already and will cause displacement, pauperization, conflict and competition of already prevail scarce essential public services, obviously it will have most impact among the people and families who are living in the lower echelon of the economy and society.
(iii) We all know that impact of Nepal earth quake, relief and rehabilitation has already jeopardized as country already in LDC with impoverished economy. Its indicate that how the country will see SDG in future, as whether they will go for this or they will give priority to relief and rehabilitation especially restoring basic infrastructure to provide essential public services. So, debt cancellation to such an improvised country came in and building resilience capacity to such a natural disaster came in forefront rather than prioritizing to other agenda. Such a situation may happen in other AP countries too.
So, what should be our concern to include in CSO statement toward APFSD;
(i) Root cause of the most of natural disasters is climate change impact so our hope is lying in CoP 21 Paris, so countries in CoP 21 must go for a legally binding commitment, it should not get the fate of Kyoto Protocol, so that it is not only the improvised countries will be survived, it is the mother earth will survive and including developed countries too.
(ii) Survival of mother earth is very much depend on if the global countries especially developed countries will bring down their temperature to 1.5 Celsius by certain period (….by the year) with drastic mitigation cut , but it must be based up on CBDR principles, i.e. , not undermining the development rights of least developed countries in view of CBDR principles. There should be a commitment in this regard in CoP 21 Paris.
(iii) CoP 21 must declare an institutional frame work for L&D (loss and damage) discourse in CoP process, including clear outline on how the disaster affected countries will have access to funding.
(iv) CoP 21 must also declare funding road map that how developed countries will ensure per year $ 100 billion from 2020, on the other hand there should be clear commitment on climate financing from the year 2016 to 2020. In this regard CSO reiterate following principles
– All climate financing must be new and additional to other existing commitments,
– Any climate financing should not be as loan or as a debt creating instrument,
– All climate financing must time long term predictable, un conditional within the frame of nationally prepared strategy.
(v) We appreciate the state led initiative lead by the govt of Switzerland and Norway, which has named as “Nansen Initiative”, on discussing rights for disaster displaced / climate induced migrants. They have already bottom up consultations in Asia, Africa and Latin America and now going to conduct global consultation during October 2015 in Geneva. So, we must raise our voice for a new UN protocol on climate induced migrants. We have to consider that there will be some island countries and some part of AP countries will be submerged fully under water, so there will be huge displacement, even the disappearing of some nation states.
(vi) In view of UNSG Ban Ki Moon announcement to make the humanitarian effort more effective, accountable and include there is a World Humanitarian Summit consultation is going on. Next level of regional consultation will be happened for Central and South Asia will be held in Tazaskistan in July 2015, final global consultation will be held during May 2015 in Istanbul. AP developing countries and national / local NGOs or civil societies should raise their voice in this regard, especially as we believe in a partnership in this regard based on equality and dignity for sustainable disaster management / building a resilience community with disaster risk reduction.
