Warming could cut rice production by 75 percent

RICE production will decline by as much as 75 percent in the Philippines if it is not quick enough to adapt to and put in place safeguards against climate change.The decline starts in 2020, according to a study made by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and released this week during a high level regional meeting on the impact of climate change in Asia and the Pacific.

The fall in rice production in the Philippines is the highest in the four countries—RP, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam—covered by the study. Indonesia will have the lowest decline at 35 percent.

Rice riots could happen if nothing is done beginning today. By 2100, the average decline for the four countries will be half of the 1990 rice harvests.

These are scary scenarios considering that Thailand and Vietnam are among the world’s major rice producers, while Indonesia has over 230 million rice eaters and the Philippines not far behind at 96 million consumers.

The Philippines, according to the study, will increasingly see more rains “for most of this century.” The western part of Southeast Asia is predicted to become hotter.

A large part of tropical forests and woodland, which are “huge” absorbers of carbon dioxide, will be replaced by tropical savanna and shrub land with little or not much potential for carbon sequestration.

In the coming decades, diseases and health-related deaths from heart and respiratory ailments will increase. They will be caused by heat stress and communicable diseases such as malaria and dengue.

For the four countries, the eco­nomy-wide cost is pegged from a low of 2.2 percent to a high of 6.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP)—figures that are much higher than global averages.

This is because these countries have relatively long coastal lines; high concentration of population in coastal areas; high dependence on agriculture and natural resources; relatively low adaptive capacity and mostly tropical climate compared to the rest of the world, the ADB study observes.

By 2020, adapting to climate change will cost about $5 billion a year for the four countries. This involves mainly the construction of sea walls and the development of drought- and heat-resistant crops.

After 2050, it will be a wise investment that is likely to exceed the annual cost. By 2100, it could reach 1.9 percent of GDP compared to the cost of 0.2 percent of GDP.

The study projects that, at a carbon price of $2.72 per ton of carbon dioxide, deforestation could be virtually eliminated. Over 50 years, the cumulative sequestration is 278 gigatons of carbon dioxide and the reforestation of 422 million additional hectares of barren land.

This is good news as Southeast Asia—followed by South America, Africa and Central America—has the world’s largest potential for easing global warming.

In the case of mitigation through reforestation, for a price of $20 per ton of carbon dioxide, Southeast Asia is likely to lessen emissions by 300 million tons by 2040.

While the region contributed 12 percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions (mostly from Indonesia), the rate is faster than the global average.

In Southeast Asia as a whole, forestry is the largest contributor to carbon dioxide emissions, while energy accounts for about 3 percent of global emissions.

On energy supply, according to the ADB study, more efficient power plants and reduced systems loss in the Philippines have the potential to ease about 227 metric tons of carbon dioxide (MtCO2) from 2000 to 2020.

On the demand side, the Philippines has the potential to mitigate 89 MtCO2 during the period 1997 to 2020.

With high-efficiency transport systems, the Philippines has the potential to lessen the effect of climate change by as much as 40 MtCO2 from 2000 to 2020.

The four countries as a whole are expected to shift from coal and oil toward gas and renewable energy sources and from coal-based power generation to cleaner fuels such as natural gas and renewable. They are also expected to change gear from gasoline-powered vehicles to cleaner fuels and low-carbon vehicles such as hybrid-electric cars.

As Asia’s third largest source of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, Southeast Asia has the highest technical potential in the world to sequester carbon dioxide.

Each country in the ADB study has developed its own national strategy to ease the pains of global warming. But “they are mostly reactive, scattered, isolated and often short-term,” it warns.

“The study confirms that Southeast Asia is highly vulnerable to and is already being affected by climate change,” the ADB says, “as evidence by increasing mean temperature, changing rainfall patterns, rising sea level and increasing frequency and heightening intensity of extreme weather events.”

Climate change aggravates water shortages, constrains agricultural production, causes forest fires and degradation, damages coastal and marine resources, and increases the risk of infectious diseases outbreaks.

“Southeast Asia is projected to suffer more from the impact of climate change in the years to come, with the impact likely to be worse than the global average,” the ADB warns.

If not adequately addressed, it says, climate change could seriously hinder the region’s efforts to reduce poverty. –Paul M. Icamina, Special Reports Editor, Manila Times