Blog

November:2021
Sri Lanka’s growing vulnerability to climate risks and the lower carbon footprint

By Anuradhi. D Jayasinghe

Sri Lanka’s global cumulative contribution to greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 was 0.03%. However, the country has ranked among the countries that are most vulnerable to climate change in the global climate change risk index. This shows that Sri Lanka has a comparatively low carbon footprint but a significantly high climate change vulnerability.

The IPCC AR6 report has shown that the intensified water cycles due to climate change are bringing more intense rainfall and associated flooding, changes in rainfall patterns and monsoon precipitation in many regions of the world. These impacts are frequently visible recently in Sri Lanka. The damages and losses of lives, livelihoods and damages to the built environment are questioning the country’s development pathways. For instance, not only has climate change caused flooding but also misjudged and unsustainable decisions in the development pathways have caused flooding – e.g.: Central expressway development projects caused floods in many areas in Gampaha district in June 2021. The country is coping with continuous climate risks (i.e.: flooding and intense rainfalls) throughout the year 2021 without having time to configure resilience planning. Thus, having contingency planning to enhance resilience to forthcoming climatic risks must be paid the most attention in Sri Lanka’s climate change preparedness agendas.

Next, although there is a lower carbon footprint in Sri Lanka, the current trends in our consumption patterns are about to make significant changes in the per capita emissions in the long run. One of the alternatives for the sector-based approach of measuring Green House Gas (GHG – e.g.: CO2, CH4, N2O, etc.) emissions is consumption-based accounting (CBA). The CBA focuses on people’s consumption of goods and services and reports GHG emissions by consumption category, not the GHG emission by source category which refers to the production-based accounting (PBA). The PBA of GHG emissions focuses on emissions from the domestic production of goods and services regardless of whether they are consumed domestically or are exported. The difference between the two accounting systems of GHG emissions indicates the net effect of emissions embodied in trade – the PBA generally refers to the emissions from exports while CBA is for the emissions from imports of goods and services.

Figure 1: Production vs. Consumption-based CO2 emissions in Sri Lanka

Source: https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/sri-lanka?country=~LKA

The production vs consumption-based CO2 emissions in Sri Lanka (Figure 1) is showing a significantly increasing trend in the consumption-based emissions or the emissions from imports of goods and services. Given the situation, the Sri Lankan food sector is further promoting the importation of food items due to the sudden and rhetoric bans on chemical fertilizers and the decision of switching to organic farming without research and planning. The country is encountering the worst economic crisis, the pandemic, increasing the vulnerability to climate change risks and meanwhile people have to cope with the consequences of the erroneous agricultural policies brought-up by the government. Considering the types of landscape demographics facing these challenges, it is the urban poor and middle class who would suffer the most. Because given the higher food prices they don’t have space to grow their food, at the same time, they have to cope with the climate risks like flash flooding frequently resulting in lowering their resilience. Thus, the egoistic political agendas in Sri Lanka make the communities more vulnerable to climate change impacts. Witnessing that communities are being entrapped in the vulnerability loop of climate change the developed nations are still fueling the development models of the developing nations to work more on climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies.

The developed nations, the largest polluters on earth have the highest climate resilience while the developing nations have to incur the negative externalities from pollution while taking the majority of the responsibility in mitigating and adapting to climate change. China, USA and India are the world’s top three emitters that are responsible for 50% of the global CO2 emissions. In contrast, high-income oil producers – UAE and Saudi Arabia – are the top two in the list of per capita emissions followed by developed countries – Australia, the USA and etc.  Dividing the total emissions of a country by its population gives the per capita emissions. The highest per capita emissions in oil-producing countries are attributed to the relatively low population size and relatively low fuel prices prevailing. However, the more populous countries and thus having the highest per capita emissions such as the USA, Australia and Canada since show a positive relationship between income and per capita emissions. This is also evident by the lowest per capita emissions found in many of the poorest African nations.  But higher incomes and high standards of living are not always lead to having higher per capita emissions. For instance, certain European countries with high living standards – Portugal and France – show lower per capita emissions. This is attributed to the source of electricity generated in these countries, the renewable source. Thus, the source of energy plays a key role in determining the emissions rates of a country.

Notwithstanding the deliverables and the proposed strategies developed by the climate conventions taking place around the world will force the scientists to forecast climate change impacts merely accounting for business as usual. Because Setting goals for zero emissions by 2050 and targeting the developing nations to pay respect to emission reduction without cutting off the largest coal power plants within the high-income nations (like in China) is preposterous.

Considering the energy transitions, for nations like Sri Lanka, climate change adaptation and mitigation studies must also focus on identifying the willingness of the general public in transitioning to renewables. Continuing willingness studies pave the path to investigate the barriers and prospects of overcoming them to the sustainable energy transition. The strategies to cope with emissions reductions and drafting Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) should be followed by public hearings. Or else the conflict of interests would fail the transition projects at the very beginning. The introduction of floating solar power plants is one of the smartest moves that Sri Lanka has initiated to drop down the issues such as population density, agriculture needs, and declining forest cover and so forth. However, these floating solar power projects must first conduct awareness programs with the intact communities to convince them that their livelihoods will not be affected by the power plants.

It is essential to subsume culture and cultural trends when considering clean energy transition in Sri Lanka. In terms of low-carbon transport and mobility, one must examine the cultural factors affecting aggressive driving, speeding, and eco-driving; automated vehicles; and ridesharing and carpooling. The same must examine in terms of cooking and building energy use. For instance, adapting to energy-efficient heating, cooling and use of improved cookstoves. Some scholars have identified, in Sri Lanka, a  culture of shramadana convinced communities to give their own time or materials for the civil works and construction of micro-hydro units. Such cultural trends are possible to retain in the long run only if the communities are included in the energy transition decision making.

The addresses delivered by our country leaders at COP 26 in Glasgow were merely words prepared to impress the audiences to see a utopia. Thus, the international community, especially the developed nations have not seen the actual climate battle that global south nations are going through. Hence, the spilling of funds from developed nations will continue to be the same for the developing nations to strategise the traditional mitigation and adaptation measures. Achieving set targets of net zero by 2050 need realistic changes in both developed and developing nations. It is not sustainable for some to struggle in a minimalistic lifestyle in reducing per capita footprints while some continue their higher living standards hoping that someone else could reciprocate and be responsible for others’ footprints. Starting from the smallest step, the actions to climate change must first start with yourself.

 Blog writers raise issues of contemporary relevance and contribute to a vibrant discussion on human rights and related issues. They express their personal views and not necessarily those of the LST, its Board and its members.

November 2021 Wednesday 17th