VZCZCXYZ0000
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHLM #1033/01 3180535
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 140535Z NOV 09
FM AMEMBASSY COLOMBO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0756
INFO RUEHKA/AMEMBASSY DHAKA 2032
RUEHWN/AMEMBASSY BRIDGETOWN 0001
RUEHKT/AMEMBASSY KATHMANDU 7306
RUEHKA/AMEMBASSY DHAKA 2033
RUEHHI/AMEMBASSY HANOI 0001
RUEHSV/AMEMBASSY SUVA 0024
RUEHAR/AMEMBASSY ACCRA 0032
RUEHNR/AMEMBASSY NAIROBI 0084
RUEHDR/AMEMBASSY DAR ES SALAAM 0029
RUEHCP/AMEMBASSY COPENHAGEN 0164
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON 5215
RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING 1250
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS 0197
RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO 4278
RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI 3461
RUEHRL/AMEMBASSY BERLIN 0599
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 1313

UNCLAS COLOMBO 001033 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
STATE FOR OES AND EPA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ECON ETRD EFIN CE
SUBJECT:  Countries Vulnerable to Climate Change Press for Action at 
Copenhagen Conference; Seek More Funds for Climate Adaption 
 
¶1.  (U)  SUMMARY:  Government leaders from eleven countries 
participated in the Climate Vulnerable Forum November 9-10 in the 
Maldives.  The participants and observers heard from experts on 
special challenges the most vulnerable countries are facing, 
scientific aspects of global climate goals, and legal facets of 
international climate protocols.  Following two days of discussion, 
Forum participants developed a final statement calling on developed 
countries to provide public money amounting to at least 1.5% of 
their GDP to assist developing countries make their transition to a 
climate resilient low-carbon economy.  The full statement is 
included in paragraph 9.  END SUMMARY. 
 
¶2.  (U)  The Deputy Chief of Mission and EconOff attended the 
Climate Vulnerable Forum in the Maldives with observer status. 
Delegates at the Climate Vulnerable Forum included President Tong of 
Kiribati, as well as foreign and environment ministers from 
Bangladesh, Nepal, Vietnam, Ghana, Kenya and Tanzania, and 
representatives from Barbados and Bhutan.  The other countries 
attending the Forum as observers were China, Denmark, France, Japan, 
The Netherlands, Norway, Russia, and the UK. 
 
¶3.  (U)  President Nasheed of The Maldives gave an impassioned 
opening address in which he noted that failure at Copenhagen would 
mean the elimination of the climate vulnerable countries and their 
peoples and warned that climate change negotiations cannot be viewed 
like any other international issue, stating 'we cannot cut deal with 
Mother Nature.'  He urged the developed countries to provide a 
significant sum of money to the developing world to assist in the 
transition to low-carbon economies and for adaptation projects. 
Nasheed likened the current sums on offer to 'arriving at an 
earthquake zone with a dustpan and brush.'  But he also called on 
those countries present to take action at home as well, pointing to 
his government's efforts to reach a carbon-neutral economy within 
ten years by transitioning to wind and solar energy and purchasing 
offsets to counter carbon emissions from the aviation industry. 
 
¶4.  (U)  Each of the delegates also gave remarks highlighting their 
problems at home, from desertification, enhanced drought/flood 
cycles, melting glaciers, rising seas and loss of agricultural land. 
 Mark Lynans, President Nasheed's environmental advisor and a 
partner at Oxford Climate Associates, discussed the need to bring 
atmospheric carbon concentrations below 350 parts per million (ppm) 
vice the 387 ppm we are currently at today to avert the 'triple 
whammy' currently affecting Maldives - rising sea levels, bleaching 
of the protective coral, and ocean acidification which literally 
melts the carbonate rocks from which the islands are built.  Lynans 
also argued not just for adaptation financing, in developing 
countries, but mitigation financing as well, to fund carbon 
reduction projects. 
 
¶5.  (U)  There were also presentations by Bill Hare of the Potsdam 
Institute for Climate Impact Research, Saleemul Huq of the 
International Institute of Climate and Development, and Farhana 
Yamin of the Institute of Development Studies on themes for the 
governments to consider when drafting the declaration.  They 
discussed some of the science behind global warming, various 
scenarios based on response levels, special challenges confronting 
the most climate vulnerable countries, the need for technology 
transfer, and legal forms and Copenhagen outcomes.  Participants and 
observers from the G-77, France, the Commonwealth, and the private 
sector called for swift action at Copenhagen lest momentum - and 
valuable time - be lost.  Yamin discussed the 'special situation' of 
the United States and the need for Congressional passage of domestic 
legislation on climate change. 
 
¶6.  (SBU)  Throughout the two day conference, participants' comments 
were generally tempered and moderate.  Most recognized that they as 
individual countries need to do more at home to manage their 
environments.  Rwanda's Environment Minister Karega, for example, 
described his country's efforts with reforestation to improve 
 
rainfall and water quality.  While most nations did note their own 
lack of culpability for the current crisis, they emphasized that the 
response lies not only with the industrialized countries, but also 
with the rapidly developing economies - and indeed with all 
countries. 
 
¶7.  (SBU)  COMMENT:  The final declaration (see paragraph 9), while 
assertive and forward-leaning, is also more moderate in tone than 
earlier drafts, demonstrating the participants' desire to be a 
'consistent and persistent, yet positive voice' in the climate 
change debate.  Funded mainly by the British Government with support 
from the Swedes, the Climate Vulnerable Forum offered these eleven 
countries an opportunity to get together and map out a common 
message for Copenhagen.  While a number of items in the final 
declaration will be difficult to achieve at Copenhagen, it is worth 
noting the very fact that these nations - underdeveloped and poor, 
yet hard-hit by climate change - demonstrated leadership at this 
critical time in the negotiating process.  END COMMENT. 
 
¶8.  (U)  Post has copies of statements by the Maldivian President 
and the Climate Vulnerable Forum delegates and will forward them 
upon request.  Please contact ESTH officer Ken Kero-Mentz. 
 
¶9.  (U)  BEGIN FINAL DRAFT DECLARATION 
 
Declaration: Climate Vulnerable Forum -- Maldives 
 
We, Heads of State, Ministers and representatives of Government from 
Africa, Asia, Caribbean and the Pacific, representing some of the 
countries most vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change: 
 
Alarmed at the pace of change to our Earth caused by human-induced 
climate change, including accelerating melting and loss of ice from 
Greenland, the Himalayas and Antarctica, acidification of the 
world's oceans due to rising CO2 concentrations, increasingly 
intense tropical cyclones, more damaging and intense drought and 
floods, including Glacial Lakes Outburst Floods, in many regions and 
higher levels of sea-level rise than estimated just a few years ago, 
risks changing the face of the planet and threatening coastal 
cities, low lying areas, mountainous regions and vulnerable 
countries the world over, 
 
Asserting that anthropogenic climate change poses an existential 
threat to our nations, our cultures and to our way of life, and 
thereby undermines the internationally-protected human rights of our 
people - including the right to sustainable development, right to 
life, the right to self-determination and the right of a people not 
to be deprived of its own means of subsistence, as well as 
principles of international law that oblige all states to ensure 
that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause 
damage to the environment of other States or of areas beyond the 
limits of national jurisdiction; 
 
Conscious that while our nations lie at the climate front-line and 
will disproportionately feel the impacts of global warming, in the 
end climate change will threaten the sustainable development and, 
ultimately, the survival of all States and peoples - the fate of the 
most vulnerable will be the fate of the world; and convinced that 
our acute vulnerability not only allows us to perceive the threat of 
climate change more clearly than others, but also provides us with 
the clarity of vision to understand the steps that must be taken to 
protect the Earth's climate system and the determination to see the 
job done; 
 
Recalling that the UNFCCC is the primary international, 
intergovernmental forum for negotiating the global response to 
climate change, 
 
Desirous of building upon the commitment of leaders at the recent 
United Nations High-Level Summit on Climate Change in New York in 
 
addressing the needs of those countries most vulnerable to the 
impacts of climate change as well as other political commitments, 
including the AOSIS Declaration and the African Common Position, 
 
Underlining the urgency of concluding an ambitious, fair and 
effective global legal agreement at COP15 in Copenhagen. 
 
Gravely concerned at reports of a downgrading of expectations for 
COP15 and calling therefore for a redoubling of efforts - including 
through the attendance in Copenhagen, at Head of State- or Head of 
Government-level, of all States, and especially of major 
industrialized nations and all major emerging economies. 
 
Emphasizing that developed countries bear the overwhelming historic 
responsibility for causing anthropogenic climate change and must 
therefore take the lead in responding to the challenge across all 
four building blocks of an enhanced international climate change 
regime - namely mitigation, adaption, technology and finance - that 
builds-upon the UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol. 
 
Taking account of their historic responsibility as well as the need 
to secure climate justice for the world's poorest and most 
vulnerable communities, developed countries must commit to 
legally-binding and ambitious emission reduction targets consistent 
with limiting global average surface warming to well below 1.5 
degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and long-term 
stabilization of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations at well 
below 350ppm, and that to achieve this the agreement at COP15 UNFCCC 
should include a goal of peaking global emissions by 2015 with a 
sharp decline thereafter towards a global reduction of 85% by 2050, 
 
 
Emphasizing that protecting the climate system is the common 
responsibility of all humankind, that the Earth's climate system has 
a limited capacity to absorb greenhouse gas emissions, and that 
action is required by all countries on the basis of common but 
differentiated responsibilities, respective capabilities, and the 
precautionary principle, 
 
Underscoring that maintaining carbon-intensive modes of production 
established in 19th Century Europe will incur enormous social and 
economic cost in the medium- and long-term, whereas shifting to a 
carbon-neutral future based on green technology and low-carbon 
energy creates wealth, jobs, new economic opportunities, and local 
co-benefits in terms of health and reduced pollution, 
 
Convinced that those countries which take the lead in embracing this 
future will be the winners of the 21st Century; 
 
Expressing our determination, as vulnerable States, to demonstrate 
leadership on climate change by leading the world into the 
low-carbon and ultimately carbon-neutral economy, but recognizing 
that we cannot achieve this goal on our own; 
 
Now therefore, 
 
Declare our determination, as low-emitting countries that are 
acutely vulnerable to climate change, to show moral leadership on 
climate change through actions as well as words, by acting now to 
commence greening our economies as our contribution towards 
achieving carbon neutrality, 
 
Affirm that this will enhance the objectives of achieving 
sustainable development, reducing poverty and attaining the 
internationally agreed development goals including the Millennium 
Development Goals, 
 
Call upon all other countries to follow the moral leadership shown 
by the Republic of Maldives by voluntarily committing to achieving 
carbon-neutrality, 
 
 
Assert that the achievement of carbon neutrality by developing 
countries will be extremely difficult given their lack of resources 
and capacity and pressing adaptation challenges, without external 
financial, technological and capability-building support from 
developed countries, 
 
Declare that, irrespective of the effectiveness of mitigation 
actions, significant adverse changes in the global climate are now 
inevitable and are already taking place, and thus Parties to the 
UNFCCC must also include, in the COP15 outcome document, an 
ambitious agreement on adaptation finance which should prioritise 
the needs of the most vulnerable countries, especially in the 
near-term, 
 
Call upon developed countries to provide public money amounting to 
at least 1.5% of their gross domestic product, in addition to 
innovative sources of finance, annually by 2015 to assist developing 
countries make their transition to a climate resilient low-carbon 
economy. This grant-based finance must be predictable, sustainable, 
transparent, new and additional - on top of developed country 
commitments to deliver 0.7% of their Gross National Income as 
Overseas Development Assistance. 
Underline that financing for mitigation and adaptation, under the 
authority of the Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC, should be on 
the basis of direct access to implement country-led national 
Low-Carbon Development Plans and Climate Resilient Development 
Strategies, and the process to allocate and deliver the finance must 
be accessible, transparent, consensual, accountable, 
results-orientated and should prioritize the needs of the most 
vulnerable countries. 
 
Further underline that fundamental principles and issues relating to 
the survival of peoples and preservation of sovereign rights are 
non-negotiable, and should be embedded in the Copenhagen legal 
agreement, 
 
Call on Parties to the UNFCCC to also consider and address the 
health, human rights and security implications of climate change, 
including the need to prepare communities for relocation, to protect 
persons displaced across borders due to climate change-related 
impacts, and the need to create a legal framework to protect the 
human rights of those left stateless as a result of climate change. 
 
 
Invite other vulnerable countries to endorse this Declaration. 
 
Decide to hold a second meeting of the Climate Vulnerable Forum in 
Kiribati on [date] to take forward this initiative, to further raise 
awareness of the vulnerabilities and actions of vulnerable countries 
to combat climate change, and to amplify their voice in 
international negotiations. In this context, request support from 
the UN system to assist the most vulnerable developing countries 
take action in pursuit of this Declaration. 
 
END FINAL DRAFT DECLARATION. 
 
BUTENIS