Climate action plan fleshed out with eye on funds
As part of its climate-change commitments, the government on Wednesday launched the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) Implementation Plan (2021–2030) at the Ministry of Environment, with ministry officials and heads of foreign missions and international non-governmental organisations attending.
This comes ahead of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of Parties (COP28), which begins in Dubai on November 30.
“The NDCs act as the base for these strategic interventions, and implementing the NDCs will lead to increasing Sri Lanka’s share of renewable energy, adopting adaptation interventions, and increasing our coping capacity and resilience to climate disasters,” observed Environment Ministry Secretary Dr. Anil Jasinghe.
He noted that Sri Lanka accelerated its climate action through the launch of the Climate Prosperity Plan at COP27.
The revised National Policy on Climate Change (2023) and 2050 Carbon Net Zero Road Map and Strategy are expected to be launched at COP28.
The NDC Implementation Plan serves as a detailed strategy for prompt climate action. The upcoming global stocktake, slated for discussion in Dubai, provides a chance for nations to reassess and intensify their efforts to address the climate crisis. This event offers an opportunity for all countries to adjust their courses and enhance their actions, aligning with the goals of the Paris Agreement.
The implementation of the NDCs is also a key requirement for many developing countries to access climate finance. Observing the critical nexus at which Sri Lanka stood, the Environment Ministry's Additional Secretary, Dr. R.D.S.
Dubai, the commercial capital of the oil-rich United Arab Emirates will host COP28 next week
Jayathunga, noted that “all climate finance after 2026 will depend on how well countries are meeting their commitments,” thereby emphasising the need for immediate action.
The NDCs are broken down into three focus areas: mitigation (the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions), adaptation (adapting to climate change-induced disasters), and loss and damage (immediate responses to harm caused by anthropogenic climate change).
Sri Lanka’s mitigation commitments are less strenuous but under impending threat due to the rapid industrialisation of Sri Lanka’s economy and socioeconomic challenges that have arisen due to COVID-19. Sri Lanka has nonetheless, according to the NDC Report, invested in low-carbon development through recent interventions like the Climate Prosperity Plan, the Net Zero Carbon Roadmap, and the ‘Climate Change University'.
Critics, however, say climate change needs to be integrated into school curricula and mainstreamed instead.
The policy document identifies financing as the biggest hindrance to the implementation of mitigation strategies. The Government of Sri Lanka has, therefore, explored climate financing opportunities through initiatives like the Sri Lanka Green Finance Taxonomy published by the Central
Bank in 2022 and the SDG Investor Map formulated under the guidance of the Sri Lanka Sustainable Development Council and the Board of Investment to provide investment landscapes that are conducive to low-carbon and sustainable development.
The report also outlines Sri Lanka’s recent exploration of the potential to engage in carbon trading and the development of a carbon trading strategy. The nature of carbon trading will be decisive amid the global outcry against the sale of carbon credits, which activists argue is merely an instance of “paying to pollute’’.
Sri Lanka’s mitigation strategies are focused on five greenhouse gas-impacting sectors: power, transport, industry, waste, forestry, and agriculture (which are also under adaptation).
Sri Lanka’s approach to the adaptation strategy is sectoral and based on nine sectors: agriculture, fisheries, livestock, water, biodiversity, coastal, health, urban planning and human settlement, and tourism and recreation. These are the focus because they are the most impacted by climate-related anomalies and disasters.
According to Notre Dame University's Global Adaptation Initiative, from which the NDC Implementation Plan sources its data, Sri Lanka ranks 100th in terms of readiness for climate change adaptation and 60th in terms of climate change vulnerability. While Sri Lanka has seen an unseasonal and unprecedented increase in floods over the past few decades, the impacts have been exacerbated by droughts, landslides, and storms.
According to the NDC report, Sri Lanka’s long-term policy objective is to “safeguard the nation against the harmful effect of climate change” by promoting sustainable development that conserves the natural resource bases on which the livelihoods of the aforementioned sectors depend.
The report recognises the information gap that exists within Sri Lankan policy spaces in terms of risk awareness and the lack of accessible, localised modelling tools. However, the report also notes that the Global Climate Fund is financing the National Adaptation Plan Readiness Support Project implemented by the Global Green Growth Institute, which is in the process of revising the National Adaptation Plan (the instrument that mobilises adaptation strategy) and preparing Provincial Adaptation Plans.
The agreement to establish a mechanism for the dissemination of loss and damage funds was the crowning glory of the UNFCCC’s COP27 in Egypt last year. Commitments to set up an operationalisation mechanism in the lead-up to COP28, however, have not been met.
Responding to a question posed by the Sunday Times and the launch of the report last Wednesday, Dr. Jayathunga observed that the inclusion of loss and damage in the negotiation process itself was a win for a developing country.
Noting that the progress in 2023 took a decade since its introduction through the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage associated with Climate Change Impacts in 2013, Dr. Jayathunga held that operationalisation would most likely take a few more years.
The cost of reconstruction from largescale disasters that have impacted food security, livelihoods, and infrastructure stands at over US$790 million. According to a World Bank report from 2018, the Government’s contingent obligation for 2017 was US$ 149mn or around 1% of all expenditure.
Climate change impacts are projected to reduce GDP by 1.2% annually until 2050. These estimates do not account for the effects of economic turmoil on poverty levels, social security, health, education, gender, and other social concerns, or the erosion of natural resources. Sri Lanka’s loss and damage NDCs are being pursued by the Climate Secretariat in partnership with the Disaster Management Centre.
The report also takes into consideration the gender disparities and minority community struggles that climate change disproportionately impacts.
In 2022, Asia faced 81 climate-related disasters, affecting more than 50 million people and causing US$36 billion in damages, as reported by the World Meteorological Organisation. The climate crisis is now the norm, with Sri Lanka grappling with various crises and spending Rs 50 billion annually on climate-induced damages.
Despite the Paris Agreement's collective framework, there has been limited progress in reducing the emissions gap by 2030. A global push is underway to intensify climate action and achieve the objective of limiting temperature rise to 1.5°C.