Opening remarks

Mr. Jargalsaikhan, Deputy Minister of Env. And Tourism

2010 оны 04 дүгээр сарын 14 Óëààíáààòàð

Hororable Mr. Adrian Ruthenberg,

Distiguished ladies and gentlemen,

On behalf of the Minister of environment and tourism I would like to sincerely welcome and all of you
to the first seminar on Social and economic impact study of the climate change in North East Asia
organized jointly by the Ministry and the ADB, and wish a success to the project activities.

The climate change issue became a most urgent issue to be resolved as it has been witnessed by
the increased frequency of the natural disasters such as draught, floods and step and forest fires in
recent years.

According to the researchers a negative impact of the climate change is different in different
countries. We are also facing the climate change as our country is one of the most suffered from
this change.

According to the studies conducted by our researchers the annual mean temperature in Mongolia
has increased by 2.1 degrees over the last 40 years which shows that the pace of the climate
change in Mongolia is well ahead compared to the world average.

Due to the global warming the glaciers of the high mountain picks are melting now, the glacial rivers
are drying up, and as a consequence Mongolia in the near future could suffer from the lack of pure
water. The studies also show that beside this 70% of the Mongolia’s territory suffers from the
desertification.

Almost 20 years has been passed since Mongolia shifted to a democracy and market based
economy. During this period we have established a private sector lead open economy and achieved
noticeable development results, however, a free market environment after 1990 was not that
favorable for us in succeeding the industrial development which lead to a narrow based economic
structure dominated by the mining and agriculture.

A predominance of the small household businesses inherited from the weather dependent nomadic
lifestyle and in the absence of development of intensive agriculture makes the agriculture sector
vulnerable to climate change and weak in terms of financial potential to adopt to the climate change.

The way we are handling the agriculture not only makes it vulnerable to climate change, but also
contributes to it. The evidence of it is that 95% of methane emission is agriculture originated.
During the dzud of 1999-2001 we lost about 20% of our livestock , and 10 thousand households lost
their livelihoods. An economic loss of this has reached MNT 413.8 billion or US$ 369 which is
equal to 15% of the total official development assistance extended between 1991 and 2007.

This year we also have lost a lot of livestock and many herding households at the edge of loosing
the sources of their livelihoods. A negative impact of this is that many poor households which have
lost their livelihoods will migrate to the cities and increase the number of the ger area residents, thus
contribute to the UB city smog and pollution which is a huge problem for UB.

As of 2006 the energy sector was a largest source of green house gas accounting for 65.4% of the
total green house gas emission.

The green house gas emission per unit in Mongolia is relatively high due to the small size of the
country’s economy. The emission of CO2 or carbon dioxide per capita is lower than the world
average, however the emission of CO2 compared to GDP is 10 times higher than the world average.
It shows inefficient use of energy in our country.

The conclusion is that we have to intensify our economy and industrialize in the nearest future; and
while doing this we need to develop a green economy based on the principle of efficient use of
resources , and this would be one of the forms of adaption to the climate change and would be a
contribution even small to the reduction of the negative impact of climate change.

The estimation of the negative impact on Mongolia’s society and economy would help to determine
the cost of response measures and will be crucial for defining and developing the state policies in
this regard. That is why the ministry attaches a great importance to this project.

We hope that many issues will be studied and important conclusions will be made within this
project.

I wish a success in your endeavor.

Thank you for your attention.