Cambodia Lagging in Response to Climate Change: Expert

Lay Khim, an environment specialist for UNDP on 'Hello VOA' Monday. (Photo: by Heng Reaksmey)

Wednesday, 07 September 2011
Men Kimeng, VOA Khmer | Washington, DC

“No one other than the government is responsible for the issue of climate change.”

Cambodia remains vulnerable to climate change, and its limited adaptability could mean more woes for the poor, an environmental expert said Monday.

The country’s perpetually weak infrastructure means there is little it can do to mitigate the flooding and other natural disasters associated with a changing climate, said Lay Khim, an environment specialist for UNDP, as a guest on “Hello VOA.”

“In addition, there is insufficient information about the weather that could be used by farmers for cultivation,” he said.

CAMBODIA: Climate Fight an Uphill Battle, But All’s Not Lost

A farmer ploughs his field 20 kilometres outside the capital Phnom Penh in Cambodia, a country particularly vulnerable to climate change. (Credit:Robert Carmichael/IPS)

By Robert Carmichael

PHNOM PENH, Oct 25 (IPS) - As one of the world’s poorest nations, Cambodia is by definition one of those least able to protect itself from the effects of climate change. As an agrarian society, it is one of those most susceptible to climate change.

To compound the problem further, Cambodia is unlikely to get sufficient assistance from the rest of the world to meet those challenges.

So says Dr Tin Ponlok, the national project coordinator in the Ministry of Environment’s climate change office. But that does not make Cambodia special, he says: That is how things are for most developing countries.

"Poor nations suffer, but they are not the cause of the problem – so what?" he asks, referring to former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan’s comments about the developing world picking up the bill for the rich nations. "How much power do [poor countries] have? Not much. How much commitment [is there in the developed world]? How much do they give and how much do they support? Not much."

Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen made a similar point at the country’s first National Forum on Climate Change on Oct. 19, when he said that developed nations must do more for their poorer cousins.

"The rich countries should be more responsible, as they have more resources to settle this matter," Hun Sen said. "Cambodia is not the country responsible for climate change, but is the victim."

On the final day of the forum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia issued its draft position ahead of December’s Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. As a developing country, Cambodia said it would do "its utmost" to reduce greenhouse gases; in return the rich world must provide cash and technology.

But Cambodia is not just a victim. It is also one of those most at risk from climate change. That was the finding in September by a British research consultancy, Maplecroft, which said the South-east Asian kingdom was the 27th nation most vulnerable to climate change out of 166 countries surveyed.

The index assessed nations on their current vulnerability and their preparedness to deal with climate change. Cambodia fared badly — it is the only country within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations that is in the bottom 30 states on the index, and its vulnerability is rated as ‘extreme’. Laos is the next closest at 37. Of those lowest-placed 30 states, 23 are in Africa.

Dr Tin says that Cambodia’s problems in respect of climate change are many, varied and in some cases unique. Firstly, it is a post-conflict society in which perhaps one-quarter of its population died under the Khmer Rouge rule of the late 1970s. That has had knock-on effects in many areas, including in terms of the number of skilled people able to deal with climate change.

"Also, this is an agrarian country where 80 percent of people live in the rural areas, and most of them depend on agriculture," says Dr Tin. "That leaves Cambodia quite exposed to climate change."

He says Typhoon Ketsana, which recently swept through the Philippines and Vietnam before devastating parts of northern Cambodia, highlighted the dangers associated with climate change.

"I don’t say there is an absolute correlation [between Ketsana and climate change], but there is some link between what happened," he says. "I think there is a scientific basis – we have never seen that kind of thing before."

He says that until Ketsana, which killed 43 people here, Cambodia was protected from the worst effects of typhoons by the Cardamom Mountain range in the southwest and the Dalat plateau in central Vietnam.

"That is not enough to protect us any more," he says.

Other risks for Cambodia include increasing frequency and severity of extreme climate events, such as floods, drought, windstorms and seawater surges.

These are all problems in search of a solution. In late 2006 the government released its National Adaptation Programme of Action to Climate Change, or NAPA, which lays out the approach to dealing with climate change in the areas of agriculture, water resources, coastal zone effects and human health.

Among the items on the list of 20 high-priority projects are rehabilitating dams and waterways, planting vegetation to protect from floods and storms, aquaculture, and improving disaster response preparedness in communities.

But three years on, just two of the 39 projects in the NAPA have received funding. Dr Tin says that is standard for developing countries, since rich nations that pledged money to a central fund have failed to deliver.

"The most important thing is that so little funding is available from the international community for those projects," he says.

Despite the lack of progress, Cambodia’s NAPA did elicit some important findings. One was that villagers in almost every province told researchers they suffered from both floods and droughts. That explains the mixed (and as yet unmet) focus on the NAPA’s high-priority projects.

Flooding presents the more significant problem in terms of food security. It caused 70 percent of the loss of rice production between 1998 and 2002.

And although drought was responsible for just 20 percent of the loss, it still affects many Cambodians: Four-fifths of people interviewed suffered from a lack of water for farming during the year, and slightly more than half lacked enough water for personal use. Coping mechanisms were intriguingly mixed – the government paper notes that one in four people "simply organise religious ceremonies in the hope that these will bring rain".

The Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture (CEDAC), the country’s main non-governmental agricultural organisation, is helping to raise awareness of climate change. It is running a project that has trained 80,000 rural families across the country on ways to adapt to the expected increasing severity of droughts, floods and higher numbers of agricultural pests.

Kim Than, CEDAC’s director of field programmes, says the NGO decided to add a pilot module to raise awareness about climate change among around 1,000 of those 80,000 families when teaching them how to adapt to the expected challenges they will face. He found that awareness levels were low.

"I have been running the climate change project [to educate people] for two years now – so it is a new thing," he says. "But I find that people rarely know about this climate change problem, so I always make sure to educate them about it and to encourage them."

The project teaches people how to mitigate the effects of climate change and to improve their livelihoods by diversifying away from relying on one crop, typically rice. Kim Than says the looming threat of climate change means that educating farmers about rice intensification – growing more rice on the same amount of land with less water – is key, as is creating multi-purpose farms.

"In that way people won’t just plant rice, they’ll also raise some chickens, or a pig and some fish, and they can plant a vegetable garden," Kim Than says. "We also teach them how to dig a channel that can hold water as well as fish when there is a drought."

He also tells them about techniques on disaster reduction as well as the importance of planting trees, "because it’s important to reduce greenhouse gases," referring to gases that trap heat in the atmosphere.

It all sounds ideal for a mainly rural, developing country, but there is not enough money to roll it out across the country. If and when the funding comes, Kim Than hopes to reach the approximately three million families across Cambodia.

CEDAC’s experience reinforces Dr Tin’s point about a lack of cash to implement solutions. But he admits that is not the only problem. Dr Tin says that three years after the country signed off on its NAPA, other challenges remain.

"Coordination needs to be improved," he says. "Climate change is a cross- sectoral issue, so we have to work together. It’s not just a lack of funding and support from the international community – we need to respond better at a national level."

It seems an almost insurmountable challenge for a country like Cambodia, given the lack of funding, a lack of awareness in rural areas, high vulnerability and few technical skills, among other things. But Dr Tin maintains he is not pessimistic.

"We need to be optimistic – even if sometimes you know you’re fighting a losing battle, you still have to fight," he says.

UN Official Warns of Serious Climate Impacts

By Pich Samnang, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
20 October 2009

Global climate change will have a serious impact on Cambodia’s economy and society, the UN’s resident coordinator in Phnom Penh warned Tuesday.

Speaking on the second day of a climate change conference in Phnom Penh, Douglas Broderick said farmers in remote areas would be especially hard hit.

“Changes in rainfall patterns can have devastating effects on livelihoods, as 80 percent of farmers grow just one crop of rice per year,” Broderick said. “This has the potential to impact greatly on the economy, but also has implications for food security and poverty reduction as a whole.”

Cambodia’s economy is heavily dependent on its agriculture, and its coastal areas, which benefit from tourism, can also be affected by global warming.

For example, Broderick said, coastal degradation in Koh Kong province can push people beyond their limits to cope. Meanwhile, climate change might also put pressure on Cambodia as communities migrate from the Mekong River system or river ecosystems suffer.

Environment Minister Mok Maret, who is also chairman of the National Climate Change Committee, said on Tuesday that the government has already taken steps in response to climate change.

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Monday called on rich nations to provide assistance to poor countries like Cambodia to effectively address climate change.

Broderick warned that failure to deal with climate change impacts could undermine the nation’s “millennium development goals,” causing problems in the economy and in social development.

Cambodia Prepares for Climate Change Forum

By Pich Samnang, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
15 October 2009

Watering a patch of vegetables at her home in Kandal province one recent day, Phann Chivoin mused on the rapid change in weather lately.

“It’s strange when it turns so cool one time and then turns very hot quickly,” the 28-year-old farmer said. “When it changes so quickly, vegetable growers like me get low yields because weather that is neither too cold nor too hot is good for our plants.”

Cambodia’s farmers have noticed a change in the climate. When it rains, it rains hard and suddenly, and the air seems hotter, they say. Some farmers think this might be a natural change in the weather, but in a climate change forum held in Phnom Penh later this month, more than 40 international experts will bring their views to bear on the problem.

So while Phann Chivoin may blame the weather on typhoons, climate specialists point to the problem of global warming.

Ouk Navann, team leader for greenhouse gas mitigation at the Ministry of Environment’s climate change office, said the effect of global warming is already apparent.

“Cambodia can no longer resist the negative effects of climate change,” he said, adding that in the past 40 years, Cambodia’s average temperature has increased 0.6 degrees Celsius.

An Environment Ministry assessment predicts a continued increase, from 1.35 degrees to 2.5 degrees, by 2100. Annual rainfall could increase anywhere from 3 percent to 35 percent, it says.

“We have already experienced the direct effect of climate change,” Ouk Navann said, pointing to recent damage done by Typhoon Ketsana, whose storms killed at least 17 Cambodians. “So we can’t just ignore global warming.”

Cambodia’s first-ever climate change forum begins Oct. 19 in Phnom Penh. The three-day forum is aimed at raising awareness among the general public and integrating global warming issues into the national development plan.

At least 700 participants are expected, including national and international climate experts, and officials expect to call on industrialized nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Climate change may displace millions in Mekong Delta: report

Saturday, July 11, 2009
Source: Thanh Nien

Climate change impacts will force the displacement and migration of large populations in Vietnam, particularly the Mekong Delta, international experts reckon.

A report jointly written by experts from the United Nations, CARE International, and the Earth Institute of Columbia University estimates more than 14 million residents in the Cuu Long River Delta could lose their rice fields if sea levels were to rise by two meters.

In Vietnam, the Cuu Long, as the Mekong River is known, flows through the southwestern region before it joins the sea.

The impact of flooding is a major contributing factor to migration and displacement in the delta, according to the report.

Actually locals in the Mekong Delta have few choices to sustain their rural livelihoods in the face of flooding. And together with mounting debt following disasters and higher consumer prices, they have to make the decision to migrate.

The report predicts that in the future, one out of every 10 residents of the Mekong Delta may face displacement because of rising sea levels.

Many of the delta residents have already undertaken seasonal migration to urban centers during the flooding season, it says.

The delta, which is home to 22 percent of the country’s population, produces half the nation’s rice output, 60 percent of seafood, 80 percent of fruit crops and accounts for 90 percent of total national rice exports, the report notes.

Titled “In Search of Shelter: Mapping the Effects of Climate Change on Human Migration and Displacement” the report says Mekong Delta residents are used to living with flood cycles, but “within certain bounds.”

To a significant extent, the livelihoods of most delta residents depend on the flooding season that renders the Mekong Delta fertile by depositing rich silt before it flows into the sea.

Mekong Delta residents differentiate between “nice floods” – those between half a meter and three meters deep and considered normal; and those that are between three and four meters deep that are called “ugly.”

The latter type of floods that “challenge the resilience capacities of affected people and often have harrowing effects on livelihoods” have increased in magnitude and frequency in recent decades, the report says.

Imperative measures

The report expresses concern that efforts to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions have been “too little, too late,” causing global emissions to rise at much steeper rates while safe levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases may be far lower than previously thought.

It notes that an international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to safe levels by the end of this year is a must.

A failure to this will “commit future generations to a much more dangerous world in which climate change-related migration and displacement, on a truly massive scale, is unavoidable.”

They call for substantial investment in increasing people’s resilience to climate change, especially among the poorest people. This would include “in situ adaptation measures” like “water-wise irrigation systems” and “low/no-till agricultural practices.”

Adaptation funding should reach the people that need it the most, the report says.

Policy makers will have to “recognize and facilitate the role that migration will inevitably play in individual, household and national adaptation strategies,” it says.

It notes that the Vietnamese government’s “living with floods” program that is currently resettling people living in vulnerable zones along the river banks in the An Giang Province is commendable in its intent, but could have several adverse impacts.

The program targets the relocation of 20,000 landless and poor households to safer areas by 2020.

The families will be allowed to take up a five year interest free loan to purchase a housing plot and basic house frame.

However the report says such kind of relocation may lead to “cultural degradation and the residents to lose their livelihoods as well as employment networks.

The report anticipates that the scope and scale of people moving by mid-century due to impacts of climate change “could vastly exceed anything that has occurred before.”

It finds that climate change induced disasters “continue to be a major driver of shorter-term displacement and migration” after economic and political factors.

Domino effect

Glaciers are retreating and shrinking at alarming rates, and thus provide a one-time “dividend” of water release to downstream regions, affecting rural agriculture and urban areas located in river deltas.

Once the glaciers disappear and no longer release water during the summer months, it is likely that hundreds more of water retention dams will be constructed on major rivers worldwide including the Mekong, Ganges, Yangtze, and Yellow Rivers.

These will have significant impacts on downstream regimes and deltas, resulting in the displacement of thousands to millions of people.

The Mekong River including its tributaries alone is carrying 80 hydropower dams that retain silt, causing erosion, and weaken the river flow to the downstream areas.

They will cause broader impacts on food security in this highly populous region.

Yet governments along the river are trying to exploit its hydropower generating capacity over the coming decades. The river flows through China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia before ending its journey in Vietnam.

A series of 11 dams being built by Thailand, Laos and Cambodia on the Mekong River are weakening the river flow through Vietnam and worsening salinization in the country’s main food growing region.

Then, due to the lack of freshwater, people are exploiting as much groundwater as they can, depleting the source and setting the stage for a large scale collapse.

Changes of tides as well as of flow will make the river no longer ideal for fish, which has so far been a rich source of income for many of the delta locals, the report says.

It notes that the recently completed Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze, the world’s largest hydroelectric installation, has already displaced one to two million people.

Will climate change impact Cambodia?

June 10, 2009
By Chak Sopheap
Guest Commentary
UPI Asia

Niigata, Japan — Thousands of people around the world celebrated World Environment Day last Sunday with various “green activities.” The global U.N. event to combat climate change was embraced by companies, locals and heads of state heeding U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s call: “Your planet needs you.”

However, recent studies highlighting the impact of climate change on Cambodia point to worrisome risks that the country can no longer afford to ignore.

According to the U.N. Environmental Program, climate change is occurring due to the accumulation of greenhouse gases caused by human activities, especially industrial processes that produce intense emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. While there remain uncertainties as to the speed, timing and impact of the resultant global warming, the associated risks on humans and our planet have been identified.

According to the U.N. Development Program’s Human Development Report 2007/2008, “Humanity is living beyond its environmental means and running up ecological debts that future generations will be unable to repay.” These facts can no longer be denied and require an immediate and urgent global and local response.

In Cambodia, the impact of climate change has become apparent, yet the general public does not feel alarmed due to limited knowledge and other, more pressing social problems like land grabbing, human rights violations and corruption, which are more visible in daily life.

Studies have examined the impact of climate change on the country by two approaches: direct and indirect. The direct impact is seen in the change in natural rainfall patterns in the country. Though incidences of flood and drought are common in Cambodia, a study conducted by the Cambodian Ministry of the Environment on climate change impact says that global warming may increase the country’s wet season rainfall and decrease its dry season rainfall. This indicates a relationship between the degree of global warming and natural disasters in Cambodia.

Cambodia, like other agrarian economies, is especially vulnerable to weather-related disasters as more than 80 percent of its population is subsistence farmers. Based on data from the past five years, Cambodia’s paddy production was destroyed as much as 70 percent by floods, and 20 percent and 10 percent respectively by droughts and diseases.

Besides, natural disasters have increased the risk of contagious diseases such as dengue fever, malaria, and other physical and psychological disorders. There were about 40,000 reported cases of dengue fever in Cambodia in 2007 alone, and 407 deaths.

Also, according to health workers, Cambodia could be facing another severe dengue fever outbreak with an increasing mosquito population. Although there had been a general decline in malaria cases over the last decade, the severity and fatality rate has increased since 2003.

The Ministry of the Environment estimates that under changing climatic conditions Cambodia may experience increasing incidences of malaria, up 16 percent from its current rate. Natural disasters have upset fragile ecosystems, which in turn have triggered other changes that have affected issues such as rising poverty and malnutrition in children. These have disturbed the growth and development in children.

Meanwhile, damage to infrastructure and land has compelled people to relocate, which has caused psychological disorders in many. This illustrates how vulnerable Cambodia is in facing the impact of climate change due to a lack of infrastructure and mechanisms to lessen the effects.

Strict environmental policies adopted by developed and developing countries have in some ways affected Cambodia, where the rule of law and economic development is still weak. For example, there are reports that tons of toxic waste are deposited in Cambodia by other nations.

In November 1998, a large quantity of mercury-laden waste from Taiwan was dumped in Sihanouk Ville, a famous tourist and port area in Cambodia. Due to health concerns, thousands of residents fled from the area, resulting in several accidents along a bumpy, narrow road with at least four dead and 13 injured, as reported by the New York Times.

Surprisingly, a month later another case was found involving more than 650 tons of film scraps from Taiwan again. In addition, several months prior to this, the Sihanouk Ville police found waste materials including x-rays, used cassette and videotapes from South Korea.

This is evidence of the environmental pollution and hazards caused by “dumping” waste in Cambodia. With corruption common and the rule of law lacking, it is an easy target for other countries looking for a place to shift their waste.

Moreover, the “race to the bottom” – the competitive lowering of standards – is another catalyst for some domestic and foreign investors to operate businesses, such as logging and mining minerals or coal, at the cost of environmental and natural resources depletion. In some cases, land or forest concessions were granted without transparent procedures and contracts were approved without environmental impact assessments.

With these direct and indirect impacts from climate change, different level of impact can be analyzed on the country, community and individual level.

On the country level, with agricultural inactivity and losses due to natural disasters, Cambodia, which largely depends on its agricultural sector, will experience slow economic growth made worse by the global recession and economic crisis. Also, poor and underdeveloped health infrastructure will aggravate health problems and further burden the government.

Though the results of environmental and natural depletion may not be visible now, it will be a heavy burden for Cambodia’s next generations, who will have difficulty in bridging its ecological deficit.

On the community level, the livelihoods of many will be affected by natural disasters. Not only homes and properties, agricultural produce and health, but even community collaboration and trust will be broken when every individual family faces the economic downturn, which in turn will lead to more social crimes.

On the individual level, people will no longer get fresh air and clean water. Depletion of natural resources and bad economic policies will discourage foreign direct investment, which otherwise provides employment to locals.

Ultimately, the current trend illustrates that Cambodia is now facing the risk of unsustainable development for its next generation. Immediate action is required to tackle the potential risks that climate change brings.

Cambodia’s weak social infrastructure will largely affect the poor. The government and all other stakeholders must come up with strong policies and fast action to combat climate change.
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(Chak Sopheap is a graduate student of peace studies at the International University of Japan. She runs a blog, www.sopheapfocus.com, in which she shares her impressions of both Japan and her homeland, Cambodia. She was previously advocacy officer of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights.)