-- ILLUSTRATION : LUDWIG ILIO

The coming Asean Summit to be held in Singapore in November is expected to discuss a declaration to address the issue.

The Asean initiative comes at the right time. Regional states need to act now to coordinate their positions for upcoming international negotiations for a post-Kyoto regime.

Although global warming poses a threat to all countries, some Asean countries are especially vulnerable due to their special geographic features or weak adaptation capacities.

Many South-east Asian countries are located in tropical areas and some of them are littoral, archipelagic or island states with long coastlines. One of the projected manifestations of climate change is a rise in sea level, which means saltwater intruding into the surface and ground water of coastal areas. This will affect fisheries and destroy mangroves and the habitats of various benthic organisms due to changes in salinity.

Global warming also increases the frequency and intensity of tropical storms and induces more cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. Some parts of South-east Asia are already experiencing a higher incidence of diseases such as dengue fever and malaria due to warmer temperatures.

Take the Philippines and Indonesia as examples. These two archipelagic states are believed to be extremely vulnerable to climate change. Indonesia, consisting of about 17,000 islands, may witness 2,000 of them submerged by 2030 due to sea-level rises if the current trend of global warming continues unchecked. The Philippines, with approximately 7,100 islands, is suffering from more tropical cyclones and flooding that damage the country's agriculture and infrastructure.

Both the Philippines and Indonesia have thus had greater interest in taking an active part in international climate change negotiations since the late 1980s.

The Philippines was involved in setting up the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC). It was also among the first countries to set up a national committee to negotiate at the Conferences of Parties of the FCCC.

Under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the emission cuts imposed on industrialised countries for 2008-2012 averaged only 5 per cent. This has been widely criticised as too low.

The next round of talks for a post-Kyoto pact will take place at the UN's World Climate Change Conference in Bali, Indonesia, at the end of this year.

Past experience has shown that talks involving more than 100 countries tend to be time-consuming with sharp divergences among different countries and blocs.

An individual country has to form a bloc with other countries of similar stance to magnify its voice, so pre-negotiation policy coordination becomes extremely important.

For the talks on the Kyoto Protocol, Asean countries aligned themselves with other developing nations and formed the 'Group of 77 and China' bloc. Together, they negotiated with industrialised countries and insisted on 'common but differentiated responsibilities'. The Philippines and Indonesia were particularly strong driving forces in the Kyoto negotiations.

This time, the 10-member Asean has welcomed the proposal of Singapore, the current chair of the regional grouping, to make 'Energy, Environment, Climate Change and Sustainable Development' the theme for discussions when Asean leaders meet in November. This is partly because the organisation finds it necessary to coordinate the stances and policies of its member states on climate change before the Bali conference.

As Asean member states differ in their levels of economic development, environmental protection and geographic characteristics, policy coordination becomes highly necessary for the preparation of the new round of talks. Choosing Bali as the venue of the World Climate Change Conference indicates Asean's desire to play a special and independent role in the post-Kyoto talks.

It is important for Asean to collaborate more closely with its three North-east Asian partners - China, Japan and South Korea - on the issue of climate change. China, the world's second-largest greenhouse gas emitter, is facing increasing international pressure for more emission cuts. Suffering from mounting domestic pollution problems, China is seeking international aid, especially through bilateral cooperation, to balance its economic development and environmental protection. It needs international support and understanding from other blocs to forestall any legally binding emission-cutting obligations.

Japan, the birth place of the Kyoto Protocol, has a special interest in climate change talks because it regards environmental protection causes as an efficient means to promote its international image. Meanwhile, Japan also finds it difficult to fulfil its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol to cut emissions by 6 per cent before 2012.

Expansion of global carbon trading and more environmental investment into developing countries serve the interests of Japan, which urgently needs policy coordination and support from Asean.

South Korea, which has been exempted from mandatory emission cuts under the Kyoto Protocol, may also be pressured to shoulder more stringent obligations in the next climate treaty because of its higher level of industrialisation. Seoul is an active participant in the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. Equipped with high-end technology, it certainly wants to expand regional cooperation in energy conservation and fuel switching.

It is timely and of strategic importance, therefore, for Asean to not only devote more attention to the climate change issue, but also to expand its bloc negotiations to include China, Japan and South Korea.

Chen Gang is a visiting research fellow at the East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore. Li Mingjiang is an assistant professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University.

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It is important for Asean to collaborate more closely with its three North-east Asian partners - China, Japan, and South Korea - on the issue of climate change.