Climate Vulnerability Monitor: a guide to the cold calculus of a hot planet

At the COP18 UN Climate Conference at Doha (Qatar), Bangladesh called for greater efforts on the part of all countries, especially industrialized nations to reach a successful conclusion.

Speaking at the COP President’s Stocktaking plenary on Monday afternoon, in reference to the Climate Vulnerability Forum’s latest Climate Vulnerability Monitor report, Bangladesh Environment Minister, Dr. Hasan Mahmud, said:

“What the Monitor exposes is the extent to which every negotiating point we have had on the table here in Doha is a major concession from developing and vulnerable countries. Just think: how 2 to 5 billion dollars a year for adaptation finance compares to the actual need of over 150 billion!”

Speaking subsequently at the COP18 presentation of the Monitor report, CVF member and Costa Rican Environment Minister, HE Dr. Rene Castro, said:

“The latest Monitor has managed to highlight for the first time the truly manifold set of vulnerabilities that so many of our countries are facing every day. For instance, the impact of heat on labour productivity had rarely surfaced before. But indeed, in Costa Rica, we already have refreshing stations in the fields to help farmers cope and rehydrate as the heat keeps rising. All these risks are very real and we can work together to address them more effectively.”

(View our interview with HE Rene Castro, Costa Rica’s Environment Minister here.)

Also speaking at the Monitor’s presentation, Dr. Q K Akmad, Coordinator of the Bangladesh Climate Change Negotiating Team, said:

“We have to adapt, we can’t avoid the impacts of climate change. But we cannot just go on adapting. At one point in time the situation will be out of our hands unless mitigation arrests climate change. We must concertedly advance on both fronts in parallel.”

The Climate Vulnerable Forum is an international partnership of climate-vulnerable countries from Africa, Asia, the Americas and the Pacific founded in 2009 and comprising a growing group of 20 countries and led by its current Chair Bangladesh. The CVF commissions the Climate Vulnerability Monitor report, which assesses the current global impact of climate change. The 2^ndedition of the Monitor was developed by Madrid-based humanitarian research organization, DARA.

The video above is an interview with Matthew McKinnon of DARA. He spoke about findings of the new report and about the myths that it busts.