“Myanmar has the chance to do things differently,” said the World Wildlife Fund’s Greater Mekong representative Stuart Chapman. “The government is thinking of different ways towards green growth.”
Dismissing rapid development as “a short-term game”, Mr Chapman said, “Green growth means being careful about …minimising impact on natural capital. The more conservative approach, being careful about building infrastructure, gives long-term opportunities and benefits.”
He said climate change, which is already affecting Southeast Asia, is another factor that could affect natural capital.
“Parts of Southeast Asia will get hotter and wetter. It will be more subject to large-scale climatic variation. The approach to energy, security and food security will be hugely different,” he said.
Daw Lat Lat Aye, UNDP team leader for disaster risk reduction and the environment, said achieving sustainable development depended on the balance between economic, environmental and social systems.
The impact of Cyclone Nargis, which left a swathe of death and destruction in 2008, was exacerbated by the loss of natural forest cover and coastal vegetation due to the conversion of the land for paddy cultivation and the over-exploitation of fisheries, she said. “The rural population is heavily or partially dependent on forestry because of the lack of other job opportunities.” Environmental degradation and the loss of natural protection such as mangroves had brought great suffering, she said.
Unsustainable management resource practices reduced community resilience to disaster and set back the goal of sustainable development. Environmental conservation, climate-change adaptation and disaster-risk reduction should be integrated in sustainable development plans, she added.
Mr David Vincent, head of the South East Asia Climate Change and Energy network of the British High Commission, said everybody should participate in the green development process because it brings long-term economic, social and environmental benefits for all.
“The government needs to show very clear leadership and much higher ambition. They need to have a clear vision of what green growth looks like and to make clear plans,” he said.
“You can’t have green growth if your energy policy is based on ever-increasing energy supply driven by fossil fuel, particularly coal, which is the most damaging form of fossil fuel,” he said, dismissing the idea that green growth hindered economic development.
He said an Asian Development Bank study on the economics of climate change in Southeast Asia put the annual cost of unsustainable growth at 7 percent of GDP, above the global average of 3pc. “Myanmar is the point where it can make greener decisions now.”
source: The Myanmar Times
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