Action must backup SL climate rhetoric, warns expert

By Madushka Balasuriya

A day before he was due to give the keynote address at the AmCham (American Chamber of Commerce) organised event ‘Climate Change: Opportunities and Challenges for Business’, which will have President Maithripala Sirisena gracing it as Chief Guest, Sir Robert Watson took time out of his holiday to present a public lecture at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute on the ‘Truth about Climate Change’.

The lecture follows a meeting Watson held with several public and private sector stakeholders last week, and speaks volumes as to how seriously he takes the issue of climate change. For Sri Lanka in particular, Watson’s message was simple: transition to a low-carbon economy and increase your resilience to climate change through cost-effective adaptation, or prepare for the worst. 

Higher temperatures and more variable precipitation, he warned, would lead to both an increase in floods as well as droughts, with the resultant extreme events adversely impacting agriculture and water resources. Agriculture would also be affected by sea level rises, as impacts on coastal infrastructure would see salt water intrusions, which would in turn affect local communities and area water quality.

Deforestation is also a major concern in the country, as heavier precipitation would mean a rise in soil erosion, leading to the siltation of reservoirs and marked increase in landslides (something Sri Lanka is familiar with). 

Meanwhile, ocean acidification would take a grievous toll on marine life and coral reefs which, along with warmer temperatures and increased frequency in extreme weather events, would cause severe damage to Sri Lanka’s biodiversity and ecosystems. 

To mitigate these changes, Watson suggested Sri Lanka that develops a National Sustainable Development Strategy, as there is no contradiction between economic growth and protecting the environment.

A policy statement made by President Sirisena in Parliament in September of 2015, offered several encouraging promises on increasing energy efficiency such as the fulfilment of basic energy needs through renewable energy, the inclusion of environmental factors in decision making and, most notably, the removal of subsidies for fossil fuels in support of renewable energy. The Government’s actions however, haven’t backed up these promises so far, bemoaned Watson.

“The policy statement by the Government is superb. But this is totally and utterly inconsistent with that statement,” he stated, pointing to a powerpoint slide showing the percentage share of coal energy doubling in Sri Lanka by 2034, as per the present Government energy policy. “This says that the future will see about a fivefold increase in the use of coal by the CEB. This is not the way to go.”

It is encouraging to note however that a Parliamentary Energy Oversight Sub Committee is currently in the process of preparing a National Electricity Policy, Strategies and Implementation Plan to achieve these policy goals. However, Watson warned that rhetoric alone is not enough.

“Recent newspaper articles and columns have highlighted Sri Lanka’s lack of preparedness for the effects of climate change, such as the drought that is taking place around the country at present. This is despite there being a lot of Government policies addressing the issue of climate change and one of them, the National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy, I actually read this morning. And it’s actually very good. It does recognise the challenges Sri Lanka faces, but the challenge now is to move some of these policies into action.”

This will be the key message that Watson will be at a pains to impress upon President Sirisena later today.

-Pics by Shehan Gunasekar