Dhaka - Environmentalists and civil-society activists from Asia-Pacific and African countries particularly vulnerable to climate change called Wednesday for industrialized nations to cut their greenhouse-gas emissions 95 per cent by 2050 from 1990 levels. "We call on the rich countries ... to act urgently and ambitiously," said the Dhaka Declaration, adopted at the end of a three-day conference in Bangladesh's capital.
"Ambitious actions and deep emission cuts by developed countries can substantially reduce the severity of the impacts of global warming," said the declaration from the conference, convened in the run-up to a UN climate-change summit in December in Copenhagen.
World leaders have set a goal to reach an agreement in the Danish capital on curbing greenhouse-gas emissions that would replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
Industrialized nations must also cut their emissions by at least 45 per cent by 2020, the declaration said in setting out a mid-term goal.
This month, the Group of Eight major world economies said they would reduce their emissions that cause global warming by 80 per cent by 2050 without setting a mid-term goal.
A UN panel, however, said world emissions must fall 25 to 40 per cent by 2020 to keep global temperatures from rising 2 degrees from pre-industrial levels. Temperatures above the 2-degree threshold are seen as bringing on catastrophic climate change.
The poor nations at the Dhaka conference sought at least 150 billion US dollars per year from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to meet the climate-change requirements of developing countries, 50 billion of which should be earmarked for adaptation to global warming, they said.
The financing should be raised through binding commitments from developed nations, based on their historical responsibility and financial capability, the declaration said, emphasizing that the funds should not be included in the UN goal of donor countries contributing 0.7 per cent of their gross national products to foreign aid.
"We are being hit first and worst by the impacts of anthropogenic climate change, for which we are not responsible," Somoan delegate Vaasilifiti Moelagi Jackson said. "The countries must be urgently supported to adapt to climate change, which is now unavoidable."
The declaration advocated shared vision, mitigation, adaptation, financing, capacity building and technology transfers to guarantee a low-carbon global future and secure better options for people living in climate-vulnerable regions.
The declaration also suggested measures for community empowerment, climate-change insurance and planned relocation of climate displaced people.
Organized by Oxfam and the Campaign for Sustainable Rural Livelihood, the conference brought together poor countries that produce low greenhouse-gas emissions but suffer disproportionately from global warming, including such problems as rising sea levels, more intense storms, desertification and migration.
Delegates came from countries that included Bangladesh, the Maldives, Nepal, Bhutan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Uganda, Senegal, Swaziland, Zambia, Niger, Mali, Chad, Mozambique and Tanzania.
