Dear friends,

I hope that most of you have read the heart touching news-effect of climate change = the rising sea level (The Last days of Paradise-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/nov/11/climatechange-endangered-habitats-maldives &
Maldives leader seeks new home for sinking nation
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/climate-change/news/article.cfm?c_id=26&objectid=10542563&ref=rss)
which actually is a major (“extreme”) impact of Climate Change in one of our SAARC member countries “Maldives”. The possible things described were to happen in one of the coming days, because of “Anthropogenic Global Warming”. The effect could also happen (in some other ways in our own country as well) and hence we all should better think of adapting to the possible new changes. Hence, before the upcoming COP14, I would urge you all to raise your voice (also try to make your government hear and know about its possible consequences in your own homeland) so that the countries who are the major cause for such a possible disaster can really hear the voice of the people drowning in the sea or facing some other bitter consequences because of them (their activities in the past as well as present upto some level). Moreover, they feel the urgency of action that is suggested by climate science – lead to accelerated analytical works and come-up with a meaningful roadmap ahead.

According to Markus Åhman et.al. 2008 (ISBN 978-92-9079-738-8), developing countries are faced with numerous ‘inconvenient truths’:
• Climate change is already happening because of natural drivers duly accelerated by anthropogenic activity.
• Industrialised countries have consumed the bulk of the global carbon budget while developing in an unconstrained world, thereby threatening to leave limited headroom for developing countries.
• A climate-constrained world might actually impose real limits to growth; if so, distributional conflicts will accelerate.
• As technological breakthroughs by 2030 are very unlikely, the bet is on making current low-carbon and energy-efficient technologies universally available and promote collaborative research.

It is a fact that neither developed nor developing countries on their own can effectively address global climate concerns, for which strong cooperation & collaboration on a much broader scope and scale is needed. Moreover, the topic of climate change remains remote to people living in under-developed and developing countries, like Nepal, compared to more immediate problems like poverty, disease and hunger. Many regions of the world already have a long history of serious disaster-related problems and ours could not be left behind. But natural disasters occur only when communities are exposed to potentially hazardous events without being able to absorb the impact. Given the magnitude of the challenge, we all have felt that adequate adaptation will require considerable financial flows from developed countries to developing countries.

We would love to hear from you all on this issue so that people in our network become aware of its importance, and realise the urgency of their
activities at individual level.

Best regards,
Laxman