Up in Smoke

Background

The first Up in Smoke publication came out in 2005 in the UK just before the G8 meeting in Gleneagles. The purpose was to bring together leading Environmental NGOS, Development NGOs and Groups working on Climate Change to work together and come up with a consensus document which joined the environment and development communities in a united view on the minimum action necessary to deal with the threat of global warming to human development. The proposals it called for in October 2005 are now more pressing than ever before. The three overarching challenges include:

1. How to stop and reverse further global warming?
2. How to live with the degree of global warming that cannot be stopped?
3. How to design a new model for human progress and development that is climate proof, climate friendly and gives everyone a fair share of the natural resources on which we all depend ?

In that light, our urgent priorities include:

• A global risk assessment of the likely costs of adaptation to climate change in poor countries.
• Commensurate new funds and other resources made available by industrialized countries for poor country adaptation, bearing in mind that rich-country subsidies to their domestic, fossil-fuel industries stood at US$7 billion per year in the late 1990s.
• Effective and efficient arrangements to respond to the increasing burden of climate-related disaster relief.
• Development models based on risk reduction, incorporating community-driven coping strategies in adaptation and disaster preparedness.
• Disaster awareness campaigns with materials produced at community level and made available in local languages.
• Coordinated plans, from local to international levels, for relocating threatened communities with appropriate political, legal and financial resources.

In addition to these, as organizations striving to improve human well-being in the face of enormous challenges, we will:

• Work towards a collective understanding of the threat.
• Share the best of our knowledge about how to build human and ecosystem resilience and live with the degree of global warming that is now unstoppable.
• Do everything in our power to stop dangerous climate change and help bring about a global solution that is fair and rooted in human equality.

The second report was Africa: Up in Smoke -2. This coincided with the Conference of Parties in Nairobi, Kenya in December 2006. The third report Asia: Up in Smoke-3 will be released before the Bali, Indonesia-Conference of Parties in November 2007 to highlight the concerns of the urgent threat from Climate Change in this highly populated mega-diverse continent.

India Chapter drafting initiative:
Specifically for the India Chapter of this report, four diverse National level organizations came together in early May on request from the Working Group on Climate Change and Development based in UK. In India the first meeting took place between the following groups, namely Action Aid, Greenpeace –India, TERI and WWF-India. A small group of individuals from the aforementioned organizations, after intense discussions and several meetings given the paucity of time for drafting the India Chapter agreed on the following format of consultations:

• The core drafting team * would prepare a draft by the 6th of June
• This Draft will be circulated to the larger Group for constructive comments and suggestions
• The deadline for final comments will be 13th of June.
• The comments will be compiled and put together by the core drafting team by the 15th of June and the Final Draft Report will be sent back to the Working Group in UK