Statement to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change  (UNFCCC) SBSTA on 9th December 2004

Regarding Agenda item 3 on Adaptation

Faizal Parish, Global Environment Centre

I am making this statement on behalf of Global Environment Centre, Wetlands International and Wildlife Habitat Canada who are working together to implement a global programme on Integrated Management of Peatlands for Biodiversity and Climate Change. This programme is being implemented in conjunction with the governments of Russia. China, Indonesia and other countries in the ASEAN region, and is supported by UNEP-GEF and the governments of Canada and the Netherlands.

I would like to highlight the issue of the importance of peatlands in relation to climate change – with particular reference to their vulnerability to climate change and potential adaptation options.

Peatlands are one of the most important wetland ecosystems in the world covering about 400 million ha in over 130 countries. They play a critical role in the global climate balance by absorbing Carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to form plant materials, which is then accumulated to form layers of organic soil or peat that may be up to 20 m thick. As a result peatlands have absorbed an estimated 1,200 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide over the past 10,000 years, playing a key role in the moderation of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. They are currently one of the worlds largest carbon stores even though they only cover 3% of the land area.

Unfortunately climate change combined with direct human activities such as drainage and land clearing are turning peatlands from key carbon stores to carbon sources. Peatlands are being impacted by increasing global temperatures, reduced precipitation/ or increased evaporation in selected regions, as well as extreme events such as El Nino droughts.

As mentioned in the workshop on adaptation yesterday, the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment has documented significant changes in climate in the Arctic region and as a result large areas of permafrost peatlands are melting, leading to drying out and degradation of the peatlands and the emission of significant amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses. In addition fires are increasing in extent and intensity further degrading these lands.

In South East Asia, the increasing intensity of the El Nino event (which is linked to climate change) is one of the main root causes of the extensive peatland fires which have destroyed or degraded over 2 million ha of peatlands in recent years. These fires have caused extreme economic, social and environmental impacts. The estimate losses from fires in the region in 1997-98 alone exceeded US$9 billion. The smoke cloud from the fires covered an are of 5000 by 3000km for up to six months – causing over 500,000 people to seek hospital treatment and schools and hospitals to close. Peatland fires released an estimated 1-2 billion tonnes of Carbon dioxide in this period contributing significantly to global climate change.

The countries in the SE Asia region have responded through the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) by establishing an ASEAN Peatland Management Initiative and are developing a regional strategy to guide actions for sustainable management of peatlands over the next 15 years. Local governments and communities have also been mobilized to take action. However additional resources are needed to assist these activities in the region to prevent further fire problems. The next El Nino is predicted by 2005 – so we need to act soon.

Similar problems are found in many other regions of the world and so collective action is needed. Unless climate and human impacts are addressed, the vast carbon store in peatlands could be released to the atmosphere potentially nearly doubling the atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

A range of methodologies for vulnerability assessment and adaptation options gave been identified for peatlands but need to be developed and tested further. Adaptation options include:

• Reduction of risks and impacts of peatland fires 
• Increase in the resilience of peatlands to climate change such as through better water management.
• Develop alternate sustainable economic activities for local communities
• Reduce non-climate stresses. 

In 2002, the Conference of Parties of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands called on all its 130 parties to take urgent steps to maintain or restore peatlands in view of their key role in carbon storage and sequestration. This was further reiterated by the 180 parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity through Decision 7.16 on Biodiversity and Climate Change in February of this year. To date however the UNFCCC has not specifically highlighted the importance of peatlands to climate change.

We therefore strongly urge the parties to UNFCCC to include reference, within any decision related to adaptation, to the key priority for assessing vulnerability of the peatland ecosystem to climate change and implementing appropriate adaptation measures.

The regular fires in Se Asia and Arctic /boreal peatlands as well as the melting and degradation of permafrost peatlands are a clear signal for the need for urgent action to start adaptation measures now.

Although a number of adaptation options have been identified for peatland, urgent action is needed to elaborate or test these further. In addition, provision of resources is needed to support initial adaptation steps by affected countries.

The future of the peatlands, and those communities which benefit from them, depend on your actions.

Thank you.