BACK	ENVIRONMENT: Developing Nations Not Idle on Global Warming

In Brazil, the government is trying to get more cars to run on ethanol made from sugarcane, under a scheme that does not only reduce gasoline use but helps cut emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuel.

These are examples of initiatives underway in developing countries that are green-friendly and help ease production of greenhouse gases, which accumulate in the atmosphere and trap solar radiation that warms the Earth. Global warming threatens to disrupt weather, sea levels and entire production systems in the future.

These climate-friendly projects might not be proceeding on a massive scale. But development experts say they are proof that developing nations can, and often are, taking some steps to help curb global warming.

Certainly much more needs to be done, say environment and policy analysts who attended a climate change meeting at the Asian Development Bank (AsDB) this month, ahead of talks on global warming that start Dec 1 in Japan.

Without doubt, the Asia-Pacific, home to mammoth economies like China and India, is a fast-growing source of emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. The region accounts for quarter of the world's emissions, and the developing world is projected to surpass the developed world as an emitter of greenhouse gases in three decades.

Results of new AsDB study say that China's and India's emissions will increase threefold by the year 2020, compared to 1990 levels, largely due to the use of fossil fuel.

Some three-fourths of China's power comes from coal-fired plants, though a report by the U.S.-based World Resources Institute said China's moves in the eighties to raise fuel prices and boost efficiency led to a 20 percent cut in carbon emissions from expected levels.

In any case, developing countries should see that curbing global warming entaila making lifestyle changes.

''Our emerging economies are only now fueling consumer demand. We know that these will have significant impacts of greenhouse emissions in terms of greater vehicles emissions, increased industrial activity, increased generation of solid waste and others,'' Philippine Environment Secretary Victor Ramos said.

''Even as these take place, however, sustainable progress demands that we educate our people against falling into potentially unsustainable patterns,' he told the AsDB meeting.

In other words, analysts say that developing nations, despite their stand that industrialised countries should lead in cuttng emissions at Kyoto, are aware they should not take the path of 'dirty' development. To say that developing countries are doing nothing to address climate change, and leaving all action to the developed countries is wrong, they add.

Developing nations have come under pressure from countries like the United States, the leading producer of carbon dioxide, to commit to cut their own greenhouse gas emissions. Washington had in fact tried, but failed, to demand that developing countries set targets of their own at the Kyoto.

Said one Filipino environment official: ''In insisting that they take the lead, we are not saying that we will not do our part. It would be foolish to do so.''

At the AsDB meeting, a group of 12 Asian countries, from Mongolia to Indonesia presented, the results of a three-year effort to draw up 1990 inventories of greenhouse gas emissions and carbon sinks and identify ways of reducing future emissions.

The 10 million U.S. dollar project, called Asia Least-Cost Greenhouse Gas Abatement Strategy, was funded by the AsDB, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the Norwegian government. It sought to improve developing countries' scientific ability to respond to global warming concerns after the 1992 U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change was signed.

At the time, many countries did not even know or keep track of emissions. For instance, Pakistani officials said their emissions inventory was the first such data generated in the country.

Sarah Timpson, UNDP representative in the Philippines, says the project results are proof that ''contrary to the propaganda disseminated by certain quarters, developing countries are serious about fulfilling their commitments to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions''.

The results show that the 12 Asian countries in the project involved account for more than 90 percent of greenhouse emissions from Asia, or nearly 15 percent of 1990 global emissions. Main sources of emissions were the production and consumption of fossil fuel, both for power generation and transport.

These countries identified ways by which emissions could be monitored or reduced in areas like energy, industry, forestry, transportation, agriculture, among others.

Ramos says the threat of climate change is forcing countries to think of the real, daily effects of global warming. ''The threat of climate change has forced us to think integratively of the environment. It is no longer just a matter of atmosphere, and atmospheric pollution,'' he said.

''More so, abatement of greenhouse gases is now forestry policy, solid waste management, transport management, agricultural policy, industrial waste, minimisation,'' Ramos said, adding that ''each of these, all of these'' went into curbing greenhouse emissions.

It means conserving forests because they are heat sinks, investing in cleaner, mass transit options and reducing overall industrial emissions.

Timpson says climate change is an opportunity for developing economies to do ''technology leapfrogging'' -- avoiding the use of 'dirty' technology industrialised countries went through.

''It should be much cheaper in the long run to start from the beginning with the latest technology than to become wedded to an old pollutive one, and eventually have to go through the full cost of conversion to a non-pollutive process,'' she argued.

Indian officials point out that, however, that many countries would need help in investing in climate-friendly technology. Timpson suggested that accessing the GEF is one way of getting 'green technology' transfer. (END/IPS/AP-EN/JS/97)