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How to adapt Is law the answer? The highly controversial adaptation issue has reached a deadlock in CoP-8. Industrialised countries have failed to contribute towards adaptation measures in developing countries. Developing countries, on the other hand, have failed to demand concrete action. In an ideal world, the ‘polluter pays’ principle would be applied to adaptation. This would allow communities or developing countries to sue industrialised countries for causing climate change, leading to adverse environmental conditions in their countries. But not in the real world of CoP-8. An under-secretary with the Union ministry of environment and forests (MEF), India, says, "No one has raised the issue of liability in CoP-8. Even if someone does try, it will never go through, for developed countries have a lot at stake." He has a point Liability is an important link in the adaptation process. At present, this concept lacks clarity and direction. Could the Netherlands-based International Court of Justice (ICJ), where most inter-country issues are raised, be a platform for climate change litigations? Tuiloma Neroni Slade, permanent representative to the UN from Samoa, a small island state, has reservations. " I don’t know how useful the ICJ would be in the context of helping us move forward with climate change litigation. How can a country prove that extreme weather conditions in its boundaries are because of emissions in some industrialised country?" Nevertheless, organisations such as Friends of the Earth International have begun exploring possibilities, both at the international and domestic law levels. At the national level in the US, there is the National Environmental Policy Act, which makes climate change impact assessment compulsory at the planning stage of a project. This means that companies skipping this assessment could be sued. It is now necessary to put in place laws and institutions that deal with climate change litigation at the international level. This is particularly pertinent at a time when communities have begun to question the present basis of adaptation. "Why should we be told to adapt to climate change when we have not created the problem? Why should we become migrants when the greatest polluter, the US, is not ready to ratify the protocol?" asked a citizen of Fiji, a small island state in the Pacific ocean, during a CoP-8 side event. She has a point, tooDeveloping country governments, however, haven’t woken up to these resentments. They are waiting for funds to arrive. But as the World Disaster Report 2002 points out, little is known about the costs of adaptation. Scientists and policy-makers put the worldwide cost at anything from tens to hundreds of billions of US dollars per year. Industrialised countries, meanwhile, have found a way out of their commitments. "We are not directly involved in adaptation measures but contribute money to the Global Environment Facility, which carries out adaptation related activities," says Yvo de Boer, deputy director general, ministry of housing, spatial planning and the environment, Netherlands. Here’s a pittanceAnother problem: a two per cent levy from the clean development mechanism (CDM), contributed to the adaptation fund. In real terms, this means taxing poor nations who are undertaking CDM projects. Why a two per cent levy only on CDM projects? Why not on joint implementation or emissions trading mechanisms? Here’s a solution It is now clear that an adaptation fund alone will not be able to comprehensively deal with the issue of adaptation. There is a need to add teeth to the process through effective laws. Two things need to be ensured: contributions are not only voluntary, and they do not depend solely on political will. Communities affected by climate change should have a forum for redressal and compensation. The CoP process is unlikely to take up this matter, for it hurts industrialised country interests. Developing countries have not been able to get their act together. The Kyoto Protocol has also failed to comprehensively address the issue of adaptation. Do we need a separate Adaptation Protocol? Says an MEF official, "Parties are not ready to even look at such a proposal, how can you think of a separate protocol?" And he is not the only sceptic. "I think the UNFCCC provides enough scope for dealing with the issue of adaptation. We have done so much work on the Kyoto Protocol and Marrakech Accords. I think we need to consolidate our work on this front, and not think of another protocol. In any case it takes years before a protocol comes into shape," says Slade. The point, though, is that issues such as adaptation and climate change cannot be dealt with in a few months or even years. As things stand today, developing countries do not gain from the adaptation discussions at CoP-8. It is time to rethink the adaptation principle, from a mere begging bowl approach, to a broad principle of polluters being held responsible for pollution.
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