OpEdNews - Page 2 of Article: WHY COGNITIVE and EPISTEMIC REGIME THEORISTS PREDICT that CHINA, INDIA, BRAZIL, and other large developing states will j

The deserts in India also are likely to grow with increasing regional warmth, and flooding may destroy parts of the millennium-old ways of life disappear with glaciers in the Himalayas. That is, erosion and further aridification of mountainous areas seem to be very likely in coming years.

In neighboring Bangladesh and Pakistan, similar climate stress is also predictable. With a great amount of Bangladesh's coast at sea level, there will be great pressures for further emigration to India and to neighboring states. This will cause intergovernmental and possible small wars for the Bangladeshi government. That is, increasing emigration is certain to cause problems with all regional states in South and Southeast Asia in the near future due to climate warming and potential sea rise.

Both Sri Lanka and Myanmar also suffer from bad developmental practice and civil war. The increasing environmental threats seem not to be on the top of the governments worries. However, like a tsunami, rising temperatures and rising seawater will effect these lands, too.

BRAZIL and INDONESIA

Both Brazil and Indonesia play dual roles concerning the solutions and problems related to greenhouse gases and actions to reduce global warming. On the one hand, both countries provide a large number of so-called "climate sinks", which are their tropical rain forests which can and do take-in greenhouse gases, such as Co2. However, these forests are also where some of the poorest peoples on the planet live and survive.

The need for more equitable development in the rain forest regions is extremely important for the whole planet at this junction. International assistance and investment is likely to continue to come from OECD lands, but monitoring on the ground of both development and protection of these forests is a national responsibility, which both countries need still need to improve on so as to secure a more future sense of national and regional stability. Otherwise, topsoil will disappear and lands will become deforested. Finally, migration will be heavier.
Moreover, deforestation would further hurt development potential in both countries, in terms of tourism and diversified agriculture. Erosion in both countries has already been bad for the past several decades but could get worse through further underdevelopment and deforestation.

Worse still, both Indonesia and Brazil are geographically lands with heavy overdevelopment on their coastlines. This means that sea rises will affect the most industrialized parts of these countries--as well as tourism and the wealthiest investment or productive neighborhoods. Moreover, in terms of storms and cyclones, climate changes will hurt the urban dwellers greatly-potentially stopping or severely stunting urban growth as the Katarina Hurricane did to the Caribbean underbelly of the USA over these past 5 years.

Brazil already has trouble expanding its agricultural production due to its current population growth-as well as the loss of good arable land due to storms, desertification , and erosion. In short, further damage from global climate warming is not something that any Brazilian government can afford (in terms of making the country more sustainable for either its own investors or for any other long term improvement for its poorer populace).

Indonesia lacks "living space" for many of its urban dwellers already. Growth in population will likely force future peoples on the archipelago to move to formerly underdeveloped regions. However, as Indonesia is made up of many islands, land will likely be disappearing into the sea as the sea rises in coming decades if global warming is not stabilized soon.

On the other hand, in contrast to the United States of America, the Brazilian government has always shown a strong interest in the environmental- and developmental issues related to global warming. In this context, Brazil has set an example for China, India, and Indonesia. The saving of the Amazon Rainforest and fighting global warming has been part of the national government's policy for over a decade. This has likely reduced the overall threat to the rainforest system of the Amazons to some degree. Alas, this has not been the case at the local and state level in (federal) Brazil. Enforcement has often been lax across much of the federation-as has been the case for enforcement of laws on the books to protect the environment in Indonesia.

WHAT DO ALL THESE "ANCHOR STATES" HAVE IN COMMON, STILL?

One important thing that OECD nations have to offer all of these developing Anchor states, including South Africa, is in the area of partnerships for technology transfers concerning further developments in efficiency, alternative energy production, and in environmental protection. This concept of major technological transfer partnerships was part- and parcel of the Kyoto Protocol from the beginning.

In summary, Kyoto's man offer to non-signatory states starting in 1998 has been (1) its offer to help increased the number of climate sinks on the planet and (2) its intent to increase the transfer of anti-global-warming technologies. In other words, from the beginning, the Annex 1 signatories of Kyoto were interested in recruiting as soon as possible all corners of the globe to become more fully involved in the fight against global warming through all kinds of incentives and transfers.

Now-a-decade later, China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, South Africa, and Mexico are all very anxious to have more technology and technical know-how related to conservation of energy and for replacing green house gas causing technologies through development and use of cleaner models of production, transportation, etc.
The catch is that these developing lands do not want to stop developing and modernizing at the highest optimal rate over the next decades.

This does not mean that these large "anchor states", like China and India, want a free lunch, but that they want to be part of a global warming regime if they can both enjoy the goods of development while at the same time implementing the various global (and regional) anti-global warming targets on energy- and gas emission over the coming years and decades.

In short, they are looking for partnerships, which is something that developed nations should be able to offer them-even at this very moment in history, i.e. before even newer anti-global warming technologies are invented.

WE DON'T NEED TO WAIT! GET CHINA AND INDIA INVOLVED NOW!

In short, both the USA and Australia are likely to fully join the Climate Control regime in the next years-POSSIBLY without signing the Kyoto Treaty or its successor TREATY. This is because the peoples have been educated and the project is clear to intragovernmental actors and scientists. The anchor states will join, too, in this project if the OECD states work hard (and quickly) to create partnerships with these large developing lands.

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