Nairobi, 13 November
2009 - Some of the most climate-vulnerable
countries in the world called for help this
week at a meeting organized by the Maldives,
a member of the Climate Neutral Network.
Bangladesh, Nepal, Vietnam,
Kiribati, Barbados, Bhutan, Ghana, Rwanda,
Kenya and Tanzania, popularly known as the
V11, are the most vulnerable to the impacts
of climate change, but they are also among
the lowest greenhouse gas emitters. Some
of them, like the Maldives, could disappear
with a century.
The two-day meeting,
which ended on 11 November, highlighted
their concerns and determination to "green"
their economies. The outcome did not quite
live up to the expectations the chief organizer
President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives,
who had hoped that the countries attending
the forum would commit to become carbon
neutral within a decade.
In March, President
Nasheed announced plans to make his own
country the world's first carbon-neutral
nation by 2019 and last month he announced
the construction of a wind farm that can
supply 40 per cent of the country's electricity.
The President has been
an active spokesperson for the island states,
many of which are now threatened by rising
sea levels. Earlier this year, President
Nasheed took part in a public service announcement
(PSA) organized by the United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP) which called for world
leaders to seal the deal in the climate
negotiations in Copenhagen next month.
Shot in six locations
and across four continents, the videos launched
this September feature President Mohamed
Nasheed of the Maldives; Hollywood actor,
Don Cheadle; Nobel Laureate, Professor Wangari
Maathai; UN Messenger of Peace, Midori Goto;
Animal Planet presenter and environmentalist,
Phillipe Cousteau and wildlife film maker,
Saba Douglas-Hamilton.
In May, the Maldives
became the seventh country to join the Climate
Neutral Network (CN Net), a UNEP initiative
launched in February 2008 to promote global
transition to low-carbon economies and societies.
The Climate Neutral Network also includes
cities, regions, companies and organizations.
Last month President Nasheed staged the
world's first underwater cabinet meeting
to promote awareness about rising sea levels.
The V11 says that achieving
carbon neutrality for developing countries
will be very difficulty given their lack
of resources. The group is calling upon
developed countries to provide money "amounting
to at least 1.5 percent of their gross domestic
product to assist developing countries to
make their transition to a climate resilient
low-carbon economy".
The question will be on the table in just
three weeks at the UN climate summit in
Copenhagen.
Laws Protecting the
Environment during Wars Need Enforcing and
Strengthening to Deal with New Challenges
UN Environment Programme Report Launched
on International Day for Preventing the
Exploitation of the Environment in War and
Armed Conflict
Nairobi, 6 November
2009 - Strengthening, enforcing and clarifying
existing laws protecting environment in
times of conflict could go a long way towards
protecting a country's natural assets during
wars, says a new report by legal experts
released today by the UN Environment Programme
(UNEP).
While laws such as Additional
Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions do
address environmental protection, their
wording remains too "stringent and
imprecise" it says.
The report's experts
recommend that greater precision could be
adopted, so that the threshold for environmental
damage would be defined as severe environmental
impacts over several hundred square kilometers
and damage that persists for a period of
several months or over a season.
Other recommendations
include a new legal instrument that will
'demilitarize' and protect important locations
and economically central ecosystems such
as groundwater aquifers, agricultural and
grazing lands, parks, national forests and
habitats of endangered species.
"At the outset
of any conflict, critical natural resources
and areas of ecological importance would
be delineated and designated as 'demilitarized
zones" says the report, Protecting
the Environment during Armed Conflict: An
Inventory and Analysis of International
Law.
The report, based on
the expertise of 20 leading legal specialists,
also underlines pressing new legal challenges.
International law regulating
warfare was developed in an era of state-to-state
conflicts.
Today the overwhelming
majority of conflicts are internal, meaning
that many environmental provisions - weak
or otherwise - are not applicable.
In a message released
today, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
says: "I call on Member States to clarify
and expand law on environmental protection
in times of war. Existing legal instruments
should be adapted to reflect the predominantly
internal nature of today's armed conflicts".
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary
General and UNEP Executive Director, said:
"Destroying and damaging the natural
assets and ecological infrastructure of
a country or community should be an issue
of highest humanitarian concern. The loss
of freshwaters and grazing lands to croplands
and forests not only leads to direct suffering,
but also undermines the survival, the livelihoods
and the opportunities for people to recover
during and after a conflict".
"I therefore welcome
this report, which is among the most comprehensive
legal assessment of its kind, as well as
its recommendations. I hope it will spur
the international community to bring a modern
perspective to bear on enforcing, clarifying
and enhancing existing laws while focusing
on the outstanding and emerging legal gaps
linked with armed conflict," he added.
The report calls on
the UN General Assembly to request the International
Law Commission to carry out a review of
the existing laws relating to the environment
and conflict.
A permanent UN body,
perhaps under the UN General Assembly or
the Security Council, to monitor violations
and process compensation for environmental
damage may be necessary.
The report also calls
for the international community to consider
strengthening the Permanent Court of Arbitration
to address disputes related to environmental
damage during armed conflict.
It suggests that the
coming year offers an opportunity to progress
these legal issues, for example during the
First Review Conference of the International
Criminal Court State, which will be held
in Kampala, Uganda in June 2010.
"Environmental
protection should be considered during the
First Review Conference of the International
Criminal Court Statute in 2010," says
the report.
Notes for Editors:
About this report :
This report inventories
and analyses the range of international
laws that protect the environment during
armed conflict. With a view to identifying
the current gaps and weaknesses in this
system, the authors examine the relevant
provisions within four bodies of international
law - international humanitarian law (IHL),
international criminal law (ICL), international
environmental law (IEL), and international
human rights law (HRL). The report concludes
with twelve concrete recommendations on
ways to strengthen this legal framework
and its enforcement.
A joint product of UNEP
and the Environmental Law Institute, Protecting
the Environment during Armed Conflict: An
Inventory and Analysis of International
Law was co-authored by Elizabeth Maruma
Mrema of UNEP's Division of Environmental
Law and Conventions, together with Carl
Bruch and Jordan Diamond of the Environmental
Law Institute. It is also based on the outcomes
of an expert meeting of 20 leading international
legal specialists held by UNEP and the International
Committee of the Red Cross in March 2009
in Nairobi, Kenya. The report was produced
and coordinated by the Post-Conflict and
Disaster Management Branch (PCDMB) of UNEP's
Disasters and Conflicts Programme, and co-financed
by the Government of Finland.
The full report can
be downloaded from: http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/int_law.pdf
About the International
Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the
Environment in War and Armed Conflict
In declaring 6 November
of each year as the International Day, the
UN General Assembly aimed to draw attention
to the fact that damage to the environment
during armed conflict impairs ecosystems
and natural resources long after the period
of the conflict, and extends beyond the
limits of national territories and the present
generation.
For more information,
see: http://www.un.org/en/events/environmentconflictday
About UNEP's Disasters
and Conflicts Programme
The United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP) seeks to minimize environmental
threats to human well-being from the environmental
causes and consequences of conflicts and
disasters. Through its Disasters and Conflicts
programme, it conducts field-based environmental
assessments and strengthens national environmental
management capacity in countries affected
by conflicts and disasters. Using state-of-the-art
science and technology, UNEP deploys teams
of environmental experts to assess environmental
damage and determine risks for human health,
livelihoods and security. Since 1999, UNEP
has operated in more than thirty-five countries
and published twenty environmental assessment
reports. Based on this expertise, UNEP is
providing technical assistance to a number
of UN and international actors, including
the Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO),
the Department of Peacekeeping Operations
(DPKO), the Department of Field Support
(DFS), the UN Development Programme (UNDP)
and the European Commission, in assessing
the role of natural resources and the environment
in conflict and peacebuilding. The main
objective of this technical cooperation
is to prevent natural resources and environmental
stress from undermining the peacebuilding
process while at the same time using environment
as a platform for dialogue, cooperation
and confidence-building. For more information,
see: http://www.unep.org/conflictsanddisasters
Nick Nuttall, UNEP Spokesperson/Head of
Media
Silja Halle, UNEP Communications Advisor
