Individual reflection paper (IRP)

Student: SAY Vortana sayvortana.itc@gmail.com

Topic

Climate change, global warming, and its effects on Cambodia as a nation

Contents
Introduction o Definition of global warming and climate change o Strands of climate changes The causes of climate change and global warming o General aspects o Case study ( Cambodia ) The effects of climate change and global warming o General aspects o Case study ( Cambodia ) Responses and challenges o General aspects o Case study ( Cambodia )

- Conclusion

InstituteofForeignLanguagesCourse:GlobalGovernance InternationalStudiesProgramLecturer:TuckerMcCravy ISPE3.1

Introduction Global warming is a term used to describe a persistent increase in the earths means surface temperature relative to long-term average conditions (those that prevail over centuries)1. It is difficult to distinguish the global warming and climate change since global warming results in climate change and the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably, though climate change has a broader meaning and refers to changes in average climatic conditions (temperature, wind, rainfall, and other climatic variables) relative to their long-term average. Both natural and anthropogenic (human-caused) factors can causes global warming. Global warming and Climate change have been the environmental issues facing humankind for such a long times, and these issues has attracted the international attention during the 1970s. Over the past decades, leaders from states have negotiated to seek a comparative solution for all parties; the institutional framework provided by the UNFCC, the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change, in 1992 and plus the 1997 Kyoto Protocol , yet these fragile frameworks do not contribute much to alleviate the problems due to weak implementation, the conflict between the developed countries and developing countries, lacking in private morality and uncertainty of states. As agriculture based country, Cambodia has been affected by the global warming and climate change. Despite its small territory and population, Cambodia rich in tropical forest which play a vital role to promote environment, absorb Carbon dioxide, provide habitat for animal and promote eco-system. Unfortunately, this poor country has suffered from disaster such as drought and flood when most of trees have been cut down through legal and illegal business. This irregular weather and period have posed severe problems to Cambodian as a nation through economy, health and so on. What are the responses that have been undertaken so far? Is it effective? Are global warming and climate change pose threats or potential opportunities for Cambodian as a nation? All these questions will be sorted out in the following chapters. Thus, the global warming and climate change are complex issues and interrelated. This issue poses a great challenge to the global governance since it needs more than one actor to engage in measurements. In the next chapter, we will take a deep look to the causes of global warming and climate change.

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InstituteofForeignLanguagesCourse:GlobalGovernance InternationalStudiesProgramLecturer:TuckerMcCravy ISPE3.1

What are the causes of global warming and climate change? We can divide causes into two categories increasing amount of Green house gases (GHGs) and urbanization. According to Time For Change organization report, almost 100% of the temperature has been increased over the last decade years has been due to the increase in the atmosphere of GHGs concentrations especially carbon dioxide (CO2); GHGs act like a mirror and reflect back to the Earth a part of the heat radiation that is lost to space.

Fig. 1: the relative of the major human-produced greenhouse gases to current warming [Source: www.koshland-science-museum.org/exhibitgcc/cause01.jsp]

The higher the concentration of GHGs, the more heat energy is being reflected back to the Earth. Thus, what are the causes of increasing those gases? So far, the causes of variation of atmospheric greenhouse gases especially carbon dioxide are human-made activities and natural disasters. There are various kinds of human activities that increase the amount of CO2 such as burning fossil fuels, emission of smoke by factories, overpopulation, clearing forests for development (agriculture, industrialization or urbanization) and logging in the jungle.

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InstituteofForeignLanguagesCourse:GlobalGovernance InternationalStudiesProgramLecturer:TuckerMcCravy ISPE3.1

Fig. 2: Carbon dioxide emissions in million tons per year over the last 200 years
[Source: http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Global_Carbon_Emission_by_Type_png]

Another cause is urbanization. In order to transform lands from forest or natural to urbanization, industrialization or agriculture, policy makers often face trade-off between development and environment. For example, in industrialized nations, they need fuel in fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gases in order to run their factories. Even though, the leaders do know that it will damage the environment, they have no choice rather than extract natural resources within their countries or other states. The other interesting cause is overpopulation. When there are more people, there will be more demands, and it will lead to more supplies. Thus, in order that factories can increase their productivities, they need more energy and natural resources. Case study There are three main causes which are deforestation, urbanization and industrialization. First, Deforestation is a hidden causes and controversial in the international stage as well. Between 25 and 30 percent of the greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere each year comes from deforestation. For instance, Cambodia becomes one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world, third to only Nigeria and Vietnam, according to a 2005 report conducted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). There are some reasons behind this disaster such as war, fragile governance, development, lands incentive for investments, agricultures, and so on. Second, the Cambodia

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InstituteofForeignLanguagesCourse:GlobalGovernance InternationalStudiesProgramLecturer:TuckerMcCravy ISPE3.1

government has initialed to urbanize the city due to overpopulation and reform. Even though, this development does alleviate and give benefit to this country, it also affects the environment. For instance, when land is converted from forests or nature to urban environments, the regional climate system is altered because urban environments are also islands of heat produced by industry, homes, automobiles, and asphalts absorption of solar energy. Last but not least, in Cambodia, the number of factories, located in the cities and countryside, also affect to the environment. The disposal of waste on land, in water and air damage the ecosystems and leak abundance of green house gases especially CO2. In conclusion for this chapter, green house gases, that created by human-made activities and natural disasters, are the main causes of global warming and climate changes. In the next chapter, we will discuss detail about the effects of the global warming and climate changes. What are the effects of global warming and climate change? Even thought global warming and climate change have many effects, these phenomena are interrelated, so to make ease for analyze the effects, I will categorized in six main impacts (1) increasing the temperature on the earth; (2) rising of sea levels; (3) changing landscapes; (4) increasing risk of drought, fire, foods and species extinction; (5) increasing heat-related illness and disease; and (6) economic looses. Increasing the temperature on the earth simply means the earth becomes warmer and warmer, and this is not a new phenomenon, but due to global warming the temperature in the world has increased rapidly and upward. Because the amount of GHGs mainly CO2 increase dramatically in recent decades, Time For Change Organization makes a projection that the temperature of the earth will be increased by 3o to 50 by the year 2050. As the world become warmer, sea levels rise because thermal expansion which lukewarm water takes up more room than colder water1. Furthermore, the glaciers in the polar melt leads to raising levels of sea which threaten to floods low-lying areas and islands, threaten the coastal populations, damage property and ruin ecosystems. Another effect is changing landscapes. We can divide it into two different issues land degradation and desertification. Land degradation simply means soil quality is worsening. This phenomenon is a result of over-farming and poor land-use practice. On the other hand, desertification means the growths of deserts and sand areas. Another major effect is increasing risk of drought, fire, foods and species extinction. Drought and floods occurs more frequent, serious and widespread. In 2010, according to

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InstituteofForeignLanguagesCourse:GlobalGovernance InternationalStudiesProgramLecturer:TuckerMcCravy ISPE3.1

Pakistani government data the floods directly affected about 20 million people, mostly by destruction of property, livelihood and infrastructure, with a death toll of close to 2,000.2 Due to the overpopulation, people need to increase the food productivities to meet the demand. Unfortunately, because of land degradation and desertification, most of the soils in the world become poorer and it leads to food insecurity in the world. Moreover, According to The Nature Conservancy group, make projection that one-fourth of species will be headed for extinction by 2050 global warming still occurs. Another effect is increasing heat-related illness and disease. When the ozone layer becomes thinner, more amount of sun light will come to the earth. Last but not least, global warming prevail the economy loose. Globally, serious change in weather (more serious hurricane, storm etc.) could cause billions of dollars in damage to property and infrastructure. Plus, declining crop productions due to prolonged drought and high temperatures, especially in Africa, could put hundreds of thousands of people at risk. Case study Floods and drought are recognized as one of the main contributors to poverty. In these pictures above, Cambodia is vulnerable to floods and droughts. High dependency on rain-fed farming makes agriculture sector particularly vulnerable. In Cambodia, the impact of climate change has become apparent, yet the public does not feel alert due to limited knowledge and other. There are six implication suggestions on Cambodia. First, recall memory of economy loose. Floods caused 70% of production losses of rice, while drought 20% between 1998 and 2002, and the floods caused USD 205 million damage between 2000 and 20024.

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Map of flood-prone communes

Map of drought-prone communes

Source: WFP(2005) Second, According to Allison, he claims that Cambodias economy is rated as one of the most vulnerable to impacts of climate change on fisheries. Third, if the sea level rises, it will affect areas near the sea. The research of ministry of whether shows that 1m rise can submerge 56% of Koh Kong City. Fourth, as an agriculture country, when the food productivities decline, it leads to food insecurity in the country since Cambodian highly depends on single crop and low processing capacity within the country. Fifth, another effect is water quality degradation and sanitation. Finally, increase in water-related / tropical diseases such as malaria and dengue. The Ministry of the Environment estimates that under

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InstituteofForeignLanguagesCourse:GlobalGovernance InternationalStudiesProgramLecturer:TuckerMcCravy ISPE3.1

changing climatic conditions Cambodia may experience increasing incidences of malaria, up 16 percent from its current rate.

In conclusion, the government and all others relevant must come up with strong

policies and fast action to combat climate change. In the next chapter, we shall examine the actions undertaken by international actors and Cambodia itself. Responses and challenges of global warming and climate change After severe suffer from these environmental issues, states have recognized that they are in troubles. Consequently, two key environmental conferences were held during the 1990s, namely Rio Earth Summit in 1992 and Kyoto Environmental Summit in 1997. Held under UN auspices, the Rio Earth Summit brought together thousands of delegates and representatives from state actors and non state actors. According to Time reporter, Philip Elmer-Dewitt, published in Rich Vs Poor in 1992, the Earth Summit was the largest and most complex conference ever held- bigger than the momentous meetings at Versailles, Yalta, and Potsdam5. In this summit, 178 states signed two treaties, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Changes (UNFCC), addressed global warming issues and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), addressed to protect endangered species and biodiversity. The UNFCC sets the basic objective to achieve stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Regarding this summit, the great success is that it gathered many people from different part of the international community that had never assembled to discuss a particular issue. Moreover, Earth summit also raised global consciousness about environmental issue; however, throughout the Rio meeting, a conflict between environmental protection and economic development was reveal because the insistence of many Developing World states that feared that stronger wording might adversely affect their economies. Following the Rio Earth Summit, the Kyoto Environmental Summit in 1997, Japan, intended to address the global warming issue. Despite reduction in the emission of green house gases (GHGs) mandated by the Montreal Protocol and Rio summit agreements, states in the world still released too many of GHGs into the atmosphere, so the atmosphere remained at risk. This Kyoto protocol provided economic incentive for developing states to meet their targets through trade and clean development mechanism, and urged for cooperation between developed and developing states over environmentally clean projects.

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InstituteofForeignLanguagesCourse:GlobalGovernance InternationalStudiesProgramLecturer:TuckerMcCravy ISPE3.1

Nevertheless, only seven out of 84 countries who signed the protocol ratified it in 1999 all of which were small islands or low lying states particularly concerned by global warming and submerging them; however, the conflict between developing and developed states has remained and it needs to be sort out through trust cooperation and mutual interests. From these two summits, there are three suggested solutions carbon management, creating market incentive and alternative energies. Among GHGs, carbon dioxide is the dangerous chemical substance that is the major cause of global warming and climate change. Since the industrialization era, the demand of fossil fuel has increased dramatically, so oil production become inelastic. In order to cope with the carbon budgets, we do need to face head-on six importance activities, (1) slow or stop deforestation, (2) reduce emissions from electricity production, (3) reduce emissions from automobiles, (4) clean up industrial processes in a few major sectors, (5) economize on electricity use through more efficient motors, appliances, lighting, insulation and other electrical demands; (6) convert point-source based systems powered by low-emission electricity. Considering the challenges of reducing emissions from the electricity generation are complicated, there are three major avenues to reduced emissions from the power sectors: greater efficiency in the use of electricity, a greater proportion of electricity generation with non-fossil fuel sources of energy and special engineering processes to capture the carbon dioxide from fossil fuel electricity plants and to store it by using a technology called carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) 6. The Kyoto protocol has accomplished one major advance: the start of a market price on carbon emissions, in the form of tradable carbon permits, albeit only in Europe. This strategy more or less provides incentive to the emitters to limit carbon emission from their factories. Furthermore, there is an urgent need to increase funding for climate science in the poorest countries to help those countries understand how adapt to the climate change, and science also needed to enable those countries to participate effectively in global mitigation efforts by reducing the rate of deforestation and by adoption low-carbon energy strategies in the course of economic development. Last but not least, while fossil fuels will predominate for some decades more, in the longer term non-fossil alternatives are likely to come to preeminence. Wind, hydroelectricity, ocean waves, bio-fuel, geothermal and nuclear energy will be more favored although each of these is limited by local condition and not applicable as global solutions. Due to popularity

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and profits, states attempt to gain the nuclear energy, but it can pose threat to the localized and internationalized because of nuclear radiation and nuclear weapon. From my perspective, there are two main challenges, implementation and the inequity between developed and developing states. The problem is not the framework or purpose but implementations. The Kyoto protocol shows the cooperation of the world on a carbon management trajectory. Even so this treaty is considered as failure when the U.S did not ratify this protocol in fear of economic development impacts. The US, far and away the biggest contributor to GHGs, indignantly telling poor countries bearing the consequences in famines, droughts, increased malaria transmission and more that the United States will not even start on emissions control, so how can other states obey and ratify this treaty? Another important but controversial challenges is the inequity between developed and developing states. Development and environmental protection are dilemma for decision makers of individual states; developing countries who try to develop their countries are inevitable to exploit their natural resources, so when developed states who enjoyed their economic growth in the past decades tell developing states to stop exploit their natural resources, it is injustice. For example, when the US and Europe tell Brazil to stop deforestation business investment, and similarly China was criticized for air pollution. In conclusion, as long as there is no strong support from super power P5 (security council); the south and north cannot reach mutual interests (efficiency and equity) plus trust each other, the global warming and climate change still remain unsure when will it can be sort out. Case study What are the possible solution for Cambodia to overcome global warming and climate change? There are three potential solutions low carbon economy/enhance economy efficiency, carbon finance and promote environment awareness. Cambodias government can improve and examine seven factors: Energy supply improved supply and distribution efficiency, Renewable sources, security and access Transport Hybrid vehicles, emission standards, bio fuels, Public transport, nonmotorized transport Buildings passive and active solar integrated buildings, improved insulation Industry Upgrading of factories, processing lines / schemes etc.

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InstituteofForeignLanguagesCourse:GlobalGovernance InternationalStudiesProgramLecturer:TuckerMcCravy ISPE3.1

Agriculture improved agricultural practices Waste management landfill methane recovery; waste to energy; composting; recycling and waste minimization Forestry Reforestation; forest management; reduced deforestation For carbon finance Cambodia can enjoy with the extra paid by using clean

development mechanism (CDM). According to UNDP based in Cambodia, a local power generator, Samrong Thom Methane-fired Power Generation reduce total GHG emission for 7 years 47,544 tCO2e; this generator can get total income at $15/tCO2e: US$ 713,160 from carbon finance7, so government should encourage this kind of investment in Cambodia.

Invest in Biogas Digester (source: UNDP) Another solution is to promote environment awareness for Cambodian. The bottomup strategy also provides a better option to overcome this issue. The government can work effectively with other Non-government organizations (NGOs) by providing environment education in the public school and local communities. In short, besides protecting environment, Cambodia can enjoy low carbon economy through carbon finance; furthermore, the bottom-up strategy can promote environment issue awareness in Cambodia. In the last chapter of this paper, we will wrap up and provide brief conclusion.

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InstituteofForeignLanguagesCourse:GlobalGovernance InternationalStudiesProgramLecturer:TuckerMcCravy ISPE3.1

Conclusion Global warming and climate change are transnational issues that pose great challenges to the global governance. Nations has suffered severe disaster such as flood, hurricane, serious earthquake, drought and so on recently, and it would be great danger in the future if global warming and climate change are not sorted out effectively. Despite of cooperation between states through earth summit and Kyoto protocol, the issues remain widespread from day to day. Who will be responsible? Developed states or developing states? The controversial stances between developed countries and developing countries remain exists and pose a big challenge for Kyoto protocol. Furthermore, the decision maker, leader, head of states are inevitable face dilemma between development and environmental protection. For Cambodia, Cambodia contributes little to climate change but almost all the provinces in Cambodia are vulnerable to climate change due to their low adaptive capacity and dependence on climate-sensitive livelihoods. Responding to climate change should start by linking efforts to reduce vulnerability to present climate-related disasters with those aimed at building longer-term resilience to climate change. Low carbon economy/enhance economy efficiency, carbon finance and promote environment awareness are the factors that will be alleviate and assist Cambodian through bright future in the next generation. For both international and national level, implementation and commitment from the government or head of state is compulsory to ensure the sustainable growth with the green economy policy.

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Reference
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Spannagle, B. D. a. M. (2009). The complete guide to climate change, Routledge. thermal expansion theory, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_expansion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Pakistan_floods (Source: First V&A Assessment: with two Global Circulation Models (GCM) : CCSR &

CSIRO, and two emission scenarios: SRESA2 & SRESB1)

5 6 7

Lay Khim, E&E Team Leader, UNDP Cambodia Asia Economic Forum 7 April 2009 SACHS, J., Ed. COMMON WEALTH, Penguin group Lay Khim, E&E Team Leader, UNDP Cambodia Asia Economic Forum 7 April 2009

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