Cambodia And Climate Change Environmental Sciences Essay

Our global environment has irregularly changed from year to year. There are many scientific evidences showing that climate change is caused by two factors including natural causes and human activities mainly affecting to the global atmosphere due to the emission of greenhouse gases, such as Carbon dioxide (CO2), Methane (CH4), Nitrous Oxide (NO2), and other industrial gases. The change of climate by human activities has caused negative impacts including global warming, sea level rise, increased natural disaster (cyclone, flood, and drought) and has impacted economic development. Obviously, Climate change is real and happening in Cambodia that it cannot avoid. Cambodia is considered to suffer much due to its high levels of poverty and poor infrastructure to cope with natural disasters and other longer-term effects of climate change. Hench, Cambodia is likely vulnerable to Climate Change and Global Warming and in the mean time the rest of the world is concerning that it comes to be discussed and debate.

The term climate change is often associated with the term global warming. Climate change can be defined as the significant changes in the climate of the Earth, such as precipitation, temperature or wind, which lasts for long period of time, for decades or longer. Global warming can occur from a number of causes, both man-made and naturally occurring. Global warming is also commonly associated with the warming that occurs as a result of increased emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities. (What is Climate Change and the Difference between Climate Change and Global Warming) Global warming and climate change can impact agriculture and food production around the world due to: the effects of elevated CO2 in the atmosphere, higher temperatures, altered precipitation and transpiration regimes, increased frequency of extreme events, and modified weed, pest, and pathogen pressure.

Cambodia is one of the developing countries which tends to give less impacts of climate change than in wealthy industrialized countries. Anyways, Cambodia is likely to suffer from the impacts of climate change and global warming that it need to adapt to those changes, especially in terms of droughts, floods, soil erosion and the loss of biodiversity. This in turn will affect land productivity and people will become poorer. In the mean time, Cambodia is an agricultural country that many hectares of land are growing rice. After rice, we keep the land idle, which means we don’t grow year-round. As a matter of fact, rice production can contribute to climate change, through flooded fields and the use of chemical pesticides and nitrogenous fertilizers. Agricultural can also potentially help mitigate climate change through soil carbon sequestration by practicing sustainable agriculture practices. (Workshop, May 27-28,2010)

More importantly, man-made have impacted most on climate change and global warming. Population growth has disturbed the balance between our ecosystems on our planet as the atmosphere and seas pollution, destruction of the rain forests, fire burning out of control, alteration of sensitive ecosystems, and destruction of the ozone layer. These activities have created an unprecedented Climate Change and Global Warming. Obviously, in Cambodia there is a big space between the rich and the poor as poverty remain the big problem that many poor people live in the disorder condition. Usually people who live next to the river, lakes or sea, mostly water quality is not good since water is polluted by wastes, rubbishes, poisonous chemical substances from pesticides of farmers and industrial wastes or accidents that lead to the endanger of people health. In addition to Cambodia’s disorder infrastructure which pollutes the clean air due to the smoke of those machines as well as many old vehicles remained in the cities produce too much harm on environment. Moreover, Cambodia had faced many wars that left many explosives on many hectares of land which is not only the greatest danger of humanity, but may also have a long-term cumulative effect on the earth climate.

Developing countries like Cambodia have been severely affected by climate change and lack the resource to tackle on its own, Hun Sen said at the opening ceremony Monday at the country’s first National Forum on Climate Change. Even though there is a strict environmental policies adopted by developed and developing countries, in somehow the rule of law and economic development is still weak and Cambodia in some way was affected. For instance, there are reports that tons of toxic waste is deposited in Cambodia by other nations. In November 1998, a large quantity of mercury-laden waste from Taiwan was dumped in Sihanouk Ville, a famous tourist and port area in Cambodia. Due to health concerns, thousands of residents fled from the area, resulting in several accidents along a bumpy, narrow road with at least four dead and 13 injured. Surprisingly, a month later another case was found involving more than 650 tons of film scraps from Taiwan again. In addition, several months prior to this, the Sihanouk Ville police found waste materials including x-rays, used cassette and videotapes from South Korea. (New York Times). Cambodia is a “victim” of climate change, and developed countries should shoulder more responsibility in reversing the effects of global warming, said Prime Minister Hun Sen (National Forum on Climate Change). For this reason the rich was blamed to be more responsible that they have more resources to settle this matter and huge countries should not blame less-developed countries. 

Climate Change and Global Warming give direct and indirect impact on the country, community and individual level. On the country level, Cambodia which largely depends on agriculture is vulnerable to agricultural inactivity and losses due to natural disasters. Therefore it will experience slow economic growth due to the global recession and economic crisis which lead to poor and underdeveloped health infrastructure that aggravate health problems and further burden the government. Many livelihoods will be affected by natural disasters. Not only homes and properties, agricultural produce and health, but even community as a whole that result in facing the economic downturn, hence it will lead to more social crime. For instance, by the end of the century, higher sea levels in the Mekong Delta, where nearly half of Vietnam’s rice is grown, may inundate about half (~1.4 million ha) of the delta’s agricultural lands.

Compared to developed and other developing states, Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States have released relatively small amounts of fossil fuels and thus contribute little harm to climate change and global warming. Yet they seem to be suffered the most. Developing countries in Asia like Cambodia has the least capacity to adapt to Climate Change and Global warming and is therefore in need of whatever external support in order to cope with these issues. Low adaptive capacity has made Cambodia among the most vulnerable region despite it is relatively low suffered from Climate hazard. However, still other areas with high adaptive are vulnerable due to their high population densities and closed location to Climate hazard of sea level rise and floods namely Jakarta and Thailand (John E .Newby/WWF Canon, October 2009). It has been known for some time the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) is the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change due to changing weather patterns, particularly severe floods and droughts that lead to immense poverty, hunger and disease. The rising sea level, along with other climatic changes, threatens the very survival of many SIDS. Approximately 860 million people in LDCs and SIDS will be adversely affected by climate change, many of them becoming environmental refugees. (Hamilton, 2005).

Many SIDS rely on one or few economic activities, especially tourism or fisheries, both of which are highly influenced due to natural disasters. Climate change is expected to impact aquatic ecosystems, and alter the distribution and production of fish. Fish migration routes, spawning and feeding grounds, and fishing seasons are all likely to change, and the impacts on fishing communities are uncertain. Rising seas, more severe storms, and saltwater intrusion in the deltas will damage the region’s aquaculture industry, which is based on species with limited saline tolerance, such as catfish in the Mekong Delta. Cambodia and Vietnam are among the most vulnerable on recent climate change impacts on fishery in 130 countries that is heavy dependence on fisheries, high exposure to climate risks, and limited coping capacity (Mirza, 2003).

Apart from that Asian is the places of interest for tourists, including wildlife areas and parks may be disrupted with less tourism due to Climate Change and it also has significantly impacted on agriculture and decreasing in the supply of water and soil moisture during the dry season, which put the stress on the available of water supplies and increasing the need for irrigation. Rice growing areas may also be affected which gives a bad effect on agricultural trade, economic growth and the development (McLeman, 2005). For instance, farmers who directly depend on agriculture are vulnerable to extreme events which can destroy their entire crop due to floods or droughts that occur unpredictably or at the wrong time of the cropping cycle (Warner et al. 2009).

The participations from other NGOs and INGOs are really necessary in order to cope with Climate Change and Global Warming. For instance, UNDP’s climate change work in Cambodia focuses on strengthening the capacity of government to respond to climate change, creating opportunities for knowledge sharing and building partnerships, as well as supporting research into the impacts of climate change on the country’s economic and human development. For the fulfillment on Climate Change in Cambodia, UNDP has supported the Ministry of Environment to produce various technical reports since 1999 with funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF). The work of UNDP has not only helped the country fulfill its obligations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), but to strengthen government’s capacity to respond to climate change, mainly through the Cambodia Climate Change Office (UNDP release ).

Climate Change and Global Warming is the hot issue that it is not concern in the region Cambodia itself but as the globe issue; therefore it need to be involved from everyone and other institutions. As a poor country like Cambodia we need some fund in respond to Climate Change and Global Warming for we cannot cope with such a problem alone. According to the project by the Cambodia Climate Change Alliance, Cambodia is supported its capacity to develop and strengthening preparedness for climate change risk; for instance, to communities that are vulnerable to climate change and other natural hazards. To run this project, CCCA grants will be implemented that requires the support from the Government and civil society, as well as with technical support by external development partners.

More than 80 per cent of Cambodians rely directly on agriculture for their livelihoods, but global warming is likely to affect rainfall patterns, possibly causing crop failures and food shortages. Moreover, the impact of climate change will be an unprecedented and increasing global threat to life, livelihoods and life-supporting systems. Actually, Cambodia’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions is low which ranked number 109 by the World Resources Institute, with emissions of only 0.29 tons of carbon dioxide per head of population each year. Nonetheless, Cambodia is suffered from the effects of global warming due to excessive emissions in other parts of the world. Like other countries in Southeast Asia, Cambodia is expected to experience higher and more intense rainfall. The effects are likely to include more severe water scarcity and more frequent floods, resulting in crop failures and food shortages. A remarkable loss of biodiversity will cause a decline in ecosystem services. Coastal communities and eco-systems are likely to be affected by rises in sea levels as well. Hench, higher temperatures and humidity will create conditions for increased incidence of malaria and dengue fever. In respond the Cambodia Climate Change Alliance (CCCA) was announced at the forum by the EU and UNDP and formally launched in February 2010. Despite Cambodia is likely to be hardest hit by climate change, Cambodia was selected to be a pilot country which was funded in the form of pooled and non-targeted resources on the basis of contractual agreements between each donor and UNDP by development partners (UNDP/Arantxa).

In regard to the environmental protection, includes sustainable management and sustainable use of natural resources in responses to Climate Change and Global Warming, both international level and national one are together trying to cope with it. In this spirit, Cambodia has been working hard to fulfill its own obligation as it fully supports the efforts to address climate change based on the key principles of the United Nations Framework of Convention on Climate Change, which require specific needs and special circumstances of developing country parties, especially those that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. Consequently, Cambodia have acceded the Kyoto Protocol on 04 Jul, 2002 (UNDP, 2004). Moreover Cambodia has completed National Adaptation Program of Action to Climate Change (NAPA) in late 2006 to address the urgent and immediate needs of the country adapt to climate change (Trisurat, 2009). Besides national concern, there are also concern form international actors and outsider states on this problem. In this regard, UNFCCC has created the High-level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing, chaired by Norway’s Prime Minister Stoltenberg. Moreover, the US has pledged US$5 million to catalyze efforts to mitigate emissions of Black Carbon, and other countries – Norway, Canada, Sweden, Denmark and Finland – have joined in this effort and may also pledge contributions (Otero, 2010).

According to the concern from some head of states has risen that solutions to the problems of climate change should be reinforced and coordinate in an integrate manner within the framework of sustainable development (8th Asia-Europe Summit Brussels, 2010). At first Cambodia could not fulfill National Adaptation Program of Action to Climate to Climate Change (NAPA) only until in late 2006 that it succeed in the fulfillment to address the urgent and immediate needs of the country adapt to climate change. It is clear that least developed countries like Cambodia and others are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change due to their limited adaptive climate change capacities.

It is clear that weather related change and complex man-mad disaster are increasing frequency and severely in one nation can affect to various part of the world. Their impact on the environment and on climate cannot be overlook. Therefore, broad commitments to address climate change should be agreed at a regional level to ensure that the actions of one country do not negatively affect or undermine the efforts of their neighbors. Though the results of environmental and natural depletion may not be visible now, it will be a heavy burden for Cambodia’s next generations, who will have difficulty in ecological system. It illustrates that Cambodia is facing the risk of unsustainable development for its next generation. Immediate action is required to tackle hence the government and all other stakeholders must come up with strong policies and fast action to combat climate change.

In short, Climate change is closely linked to human activities not only in wealthy industrialized countries people and their livelihoods but also other less developing countries. In particular Climate Change will impact the social and economic in small islands, and also affecting key sectors such as tourism and agriculture, and resulting in risky infrastructure due to Climate variability, including extreme events such as storms, floods and sustained droughts. Therefore the negative impacts of climate change could create a new group of refugees, who may migrate into new settlements to seek new living. Indeed, LDCs and SIDS have neither the financial resources nor the technical capacities to meet their adaptation needs due to climate change and global warming. Consequently, the international community needs to provide stronger financial and technical support to the LDCs and SIDS through the special funds under international frameworks.

. In respond special effort needs to be done. Obviously, Cambodia is likely to experience the impacts of climate change and therefore must be prepared to adapt to the changes on the environment, especially in terms of droughts, floods, soil erosion and the loss of biodiversity. Consequently, they will need to adopt sustainable practices on agriculture by reducing the vulnerability of soil based agricultural production systems through the management of soil fertility, management of the cycle of soil more efficiently in grasslands and cropping systems. (Canon, Oct,2009). Moreover, there should be the participating of NGO network members and the government in order to increase their understanding on the issue and what everyone can do is to save water, against pollution, forest protection, wildlife or animals and environmental reservation, recycle, reuse the energy recreation that is a part of daily life. Therefore, in respond to address Climate Change, we should improved energy efficiency and better use of alternative and renewable energy. We must encourage investment in clean development mechanisms and therefore, “green” economy must be considered at the top priority of the development agenda. Hence, all countries need to consider setting their own Green House Gaze in the limited target and promote sustainable management of natural resources. Moreover, the region’s governments and people need to identify a way to sustainably develop their economies, alleviate poverty, and conserve the region’s extraordinary species and ecosystems. The region should improve environmental management capacity and more effective conservation in order to adapt to and reduce the unavoidable climate change impacts (Canon, Oct,2009).