South Asia

2016: A unique opportunity to get it right on forests and climate change

Moniz Phu Khao Khouay, Vientiane Province — Forest monitoring efforts in Phu Khao Khouay, Vientiane Province, Laos PDR. Photo credit: Hannah McDonald

If ever there was a year to make significant progress on forest conservation and climate change, it was 2016. Coming on the heels of the historic COP21 Paris Agreement, 2016 was a year to demonstrate the commitment the World Bank Group has to support countries as they take forward their nationally determined contributions to address our global climate change challenge. It’s gratifying to look back on 2016 and feel that we contributed to harnessing this momentum and sense of urgency; especially in showing how sustainable land use, including sustainable forest management, is critical to achieving the ambitious targets set out in the Paris Agreement.

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People have been harnessing water to produce energy and perform work for thousands of years. The ancient Greeks used watermills to grind wheat into flour. Ancient Romans used the power of water to cut timber and stone. During the Han dynasty in China, hydraulically operated pumps raised water for crops into irrigation canals. .

Today it represents 16.6 percent of the world’s total electricity production while contributing 80% of the global renewable electricity mix.

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The West Africa Agriculture Productivity Program (WAAPP). Photo Credits: Dasan Bobo/The World Bank

Here’s something you may not be aware of: agriculture and changes in land use already contribute 25 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. It’s a statistic that matters in the face of two unrelenting challenges now facing the globe –how to turn the promises of last December’s historic Paris climate change agreement into reality and how to feed a growing global population.

Hurricane Patricia. Photo credit: NASA Earth Observatory

We’re witnessing an unprecedented uptick in record-breaking storms. In October last year, Hurricane Patricia came ashore in Mexico with record breaking 200 miles per hour winds. A few months later on the other side of the world, Cyclone Winston broke records for Pacific basin wind speeds, destroying parts of mainland Fiji with 180 miles per hour winds. More recently, Cyclone Fantala became the most powerful storm in the Indian Ocean ever recorded.

Experts agree that its activities by people which are increasing the severity of storms like these. Climate change isn’t just projected to increase the intensity of hurricanes and cyclones, but a whole other range of other natural hazards, like droughts, floods, storms, and heat waves.

Just consider some statistics. It’s estimated some one point four million people move to cities every week. And by 2050, we will add nearly 2.5 billion people to the planet, with 90 percent of the urban growth in that time taking place in developing countries.

Yet living in cities can be risky business. Many large cities are coastal, in deltas or on rivers and at risk from of flooding from powerful storms or rising sea levels. Globally 80 percent of the world’s largest cities are vulnerable to severe earthquakes and 60 percent are at risk from tsunamis and storm surges.

Negotiators in Paris last December achieved a previously unattainable consensus among all countries — large and small, industrialized and developing — on a target for minimizing climate change.

They agreed to hold planetary warming to below 2 degrees Celsius, which can only happen by drastically cutting the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.

Adhering to the target requires a de facto energy revolution that transforms economies and societies by weaning the world from dependence on fossil fuels. The magnitude of the task means strategies and spending on a scale far exceeding previous efforts.

Students from Tonga's Tailulu College making the most of new high-speed broadband services at 2013 World Telecommunication and Information Society Day celebrations in the the Tongan capital, Nuku'alofa. Nukua'lofa, Tonga. Photo: Tom Perry / World Bank

Try to imagine a world without the Internet.

Impossible, isn’t it?

Over the past 25 years, the Internet has become the nervous system of our society, interconnecting all the different parts of our everyday lives. Our social interactions, ways of doing business, traveling and countless other activities are supported and governed by this technology.

At this very moment, just over three billion people are connected to the Internet, 105 billion emails are being sent, two million blog posts have just been written (including this one) and YouTube has collected four billion views. These numbers give you a glimpse of the extent to which humanity is intimately and deeply dependent on this technology.

The digital revolution has changed the daily lives of billions of people. But what about the billions who have been left out of this technological revolution?

This and many other questions have been addressed in the just released 2016 World Development Report 2016: Digital Dividends, which examines how the Internet can be a force for development, especially for poor people in developing countries.

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在巴黎气候变化大会召开之前，180多个国家提交了有关走低碳发展之路的国家气候预案。

国家自主贡献预案主要包括到2025年或2030年之前计划实施的减排目标，但这些预案不仅仅是关于数字的，其中很多预案、特别是发展中国家提交的预案还提出了在国家整体发展框架内的气候行动，也包括适应行动。这并不令人吃惊，因为归根结底，应对气候变化就是关于有效地管理国家经济的。

这显然也是中国的情况。

Also available in: 中文

City landscape, Tianjin, China. Photo: Yang Aijun / World Bank

More than 180 countries have submitted their intended national climate plans to get on a low-carbon development pathway ahead of COP21 climate talks, now underway in Paris.

Called the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), most include mitigation targets to be implemented by 2025 or 2030. But these plans are not just about numbers. Many of them, particularly those put forward by developing countries, also propose climate actions within the countries’ overall development framework, including adaptation. Hardly surprising, as after all, tackling climate change is about effectively managing a country’s economy.

This certainly seems to be the case for China.

Today, a group of 26 financial institutions from across the globe, including the World Bank Group, launched five voluntary Principles for Mainstreaming Climate Action within Financial Institution. The Principles are meant to support and guide financial institutions moving forward in adapting to and promoting climate-smart development, and have been developed based on practices implemented by financial institutions worldwide over the last two decades.

South Asia

2016: A unique opportunity to get it right on forests and climate change

Hydropower in Vietnam: The right way to do it

The challenge to be climate smart with the world’s agriculture

Using technology to stay ahead of disaster risk

Building safer cities for a volatile climate

Delivering on the Paris agreement: Is there a carbon pricing opportunity for India?

The Digital Divide: a challenge to overcome in tackling climate change

中国追寻新的发展之路

China: in pursuit of a new development pathway

Time for financial institutions to mainstream climate

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