MANILA — The latest round of negotiations on a new global climate change agreement that recently concluded in Bonn showed promising signs that governments everywhere realize the urgency of cooperative action to address this global challenge.
It is crucial that industrialized countries commit to significant cuts in their current greenhouse-gas emissions, and developing countries — especially those who can influence global emissions — also must take appropriate measures to put their economic development onto low-carbon paths. There are only six months left to conclude a global deal in Copenhagen, which must also address how to finance these developing country actions as well as measures to adapt to climate change impacts.
The extraordinary economic growth in Asia and the Pacific over the past two decades has successfully lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, but the development pattern followed has not been environmentally sustainable — either locally or globally.