Around the clock this is counting the cost on aljazeera look at the world of business and economics this week as the death toll rises the Economic Cost of the coronavirus is being felt in every market in the World Oil Prices have tumbled prices. We have an exclusive interview with the general secretary of the gas exporting nation. A few 1000000000. 00 spent trillions of dollars later from new york. We look at the Economic Cost of rising sea levels. The extraordinary risks in peru taking to bring in the cash. Death toll from the coronavirus keeps on rising its not only crippling chinas economy its having a knock on effect globally formula ones race in shanghai has been postponed and this is. As mobile World Congress half a global way in barcelona has been canceled or oil prices have tumbled 20 percent below that january peaks raising the prospect that opec could cut production again its not only opec that feeling the pinch china has also turned away gas tank is slashing gas prices in half and Just Like Oil theres a glass of gas on the market yet unlike opec theres no collective resolve to control prices but over the last 2 decades a group of 12 gas exporting nations have been working to break the link with oil prices right now 34 percent of gas is traded on the markets but despite controlling 70 percent of the worlds reserves theyre no closer to using that economic muscle to control prices and his the reason why gas is seen as such an important mix in global trade while hydrocarbons like oil will see a decline in use over the next few decades l. N. G. Is seen as an interim solution to our dependence on crude oil problem is big produces like australia or United States and norway dont take the form seriously because has yet to carve out a role the gas exporting countries form is based in doha and its general secretary is the foreman Russian Energy minister i caught up with that year recent urine and began by asking about the impact of the corona virus 1st of all i would like to express my sincere condolences with the people suffering from this disease in china a confident. Its a great prejudice from my point of view and of course we should a speedy recovery for the ones who are infected i see of the International Community and specifically Chinese Government started struggling against the disease of course from because of the g c of confidence them. Struggle speaking about the world global trade ellen. Trade natural gas to date of course we feel that this edition impacts negatively but i think that this is again a temporary vent and i hope that this disease wont have global complications it already isnt it because china is saying its not going on a contract exactly this is a forced measure situation any contract between say a lot of buyers have got the special clause which is called force measure that this some events and maybe city ations which are out of the influence of participants of the parties of the contract but the good. I think that this is a temporary situation because fortunate life. Hasnt stopped and people will continue leavin will continue to use and will continue concealment and will everything will continue from my point of view of course some delays maybe some past bornemann and so on so forth but speaking about me personally i dont like to exaggerate the city ation negatively. On that to her friend we should solidify our efforts and we should strengthen our stance is. Confronting these challenges in order to meet this challenge a sense to overcome the situation and the prices are less than half what they were a year ago what kind of pressure does that put on produces could if there is a great pressure on the other hand speaking about natural gas trade you see the 2 thirds of. Contacts between producers and sellers and buyers from the other side this is the contracts that elated to the socalled oil and oil products index. Asian it means a. Natural Gas Producers are protected from this point of view because theres a reverse side of that metal. Low prices high prices the amount of investments in the upstream in the midst in which is crucial of crucial importance for producers fortunately the lower dimension 2 thirds of our contracts a long Term Contracts with oil and oil products in the station spare sir speaking about one thought of the products that this contracts at the spot contracts short Term Contracts we see will be tennis that bias for the time being but i insisted to increase the amount of short Term Contracts and. Interested in heaven sport prices but this is this edition of rather. I can say we see here some equilibrium or says Something Like these but this is a temporary one from our point of view and as far as United States concerned because they are not part of the g c e c f n a little israeli problem exactly its not the problem we tried to establish the bridges with both countries with Gas Producers we do that through Different International for us and congress isnt exhibitions g. C. F. Is in white it on the regular basis by the organizers so we have got an opportunity to exchange views with them. Not only through the mentioned international. Photosynth existence but i mentioned for example g 20 the United States today are both countries g 20 members so this is an opportunity for us to discuss methods of mutual concern more of that theres another phenomena. Witnessed recently that the stimulus meant of the east Mediterranean Gas forum his father say no way. The participation as an observer of the United States so it means that. Companies are present and. Interested in having regular contacts when we look at what the scientists is saying that needs to be done to stop catastrophic Global Warming then then then reliance on gas will diminish as time goes on how you preparing for that and we are completely convinced that the quick us than the most efficient of the quickest reply response to the Climate Change that is the extended it to lizzie sion of natural gas as of the mostly a most friendly environmental fuel i dont like to call it forssell fuel but that this is really a fossil fuel exactly exactly but that this is the more than the bottom mentally Friendly Force of fuel and that this is of the quick and the the quickest response to this challenge i mean Climate Changes and struggle against Climate Changes this is our idea and one more can i just interrupt you just very briefly the last point the Research Group the Global Energy monitor said that the proposed tripling of global l. N. G. Capacity risk risks in introducing decades of emissions of methane a potent and difficult to monitor Greenhouse Gas which is that odds with the parents agreement. We started specific goal is some out of scenarios connected with the usage of. The hydro gen. As a part of the future natural gas mix through Hydrogen Technologies will be able to reduce drastically of the myth the food off of the whole nature will give us a value chain or chain of production so this is for the time being one of the core. Activities. Or. I can say methodists of our specific scientific interest i participated to recently in some International Global discussions devoted to the deliberation of hydrogen and Hydrogen Technologies in connection with natural gas with methane and theyre completely promising and thats why i made this statement the g 20 give it enough ministers of a college and energy in japan last year in june i stressed specific on the blue eyed little jim technologies on the basis of natural gas so in spite of character of natural gas there are if you ever write of opportunities how to make it carbon less. More or less harmful and more useful for for the community which is ensuring thank you very much youre welcome thank you for. Not warming oceans in that melting ice caps could cause sea levels to rise by more than a meter by the end of the century and that would effect into space up to 680000000 People Living along the worlds coastlines the u. K. S National OceanographicCenter Projected that flooding from rising sea levels could cost 14. 00 trillion dollars worldwide annually by 2100 the United States will need to spend 400000000000. 00 over the next 20 years to improve its flood defenses new york is considering spending more than 100000000000. 00 on a storm barrier to which President Trump tweeted its a costly foolish and environmentally unfriendly idea the world bank believes every dollar spent on sea defenses can yield between 7. 00 to 10. 00 by preventing costly damage well in todays youre is planning to spend more than 30000000000. 00 on moving the capital because g. Cancer is sinking at an alarming rate 90 percent of the city could be submerged by 2050 a 100 reports now from jakarta. Around 4000000 people live in water on the north coast of jakarta many stay in unsafe buildings and partially submerged streets like this is the water has had to raise the foundation of her home because of the high tides and rain that of course flooding in the area and thats because part of indonesias capital sinking of our own the land and sea used to be the same level unlike now then they started Building Hotels and thats led to flooding we keep trying to raise our land higher but water keeps coming in. Under water digging and growing development is causing the land to sink in jakarta bay as water is pumped out the ground gradually subsides only 60 percent of jakartas population has access to a piped Water Service which means many have to use wells flooding is also common especially during the rainy season some of the rivers that run through the city are unable to drain water in 2017 a powerful deluge hit more about or destroying hundreds of homes. When the wall broke i heard a noise like an explosion water came in like a little tonight my husband was pushed by the watch and broke his collarbone we had to rebuild everything. Parts of north dakota have sunk by up to 20 centimeters a year and several areas along the coast below sea level this mosque couldnt be salvaged now left lying hof submerged the government has since built defenses to protect the citys coastline but theyre also sinking into the mud. This is done. By the government to prevent the sinking with sea water is still seeping through the cracks and many here say that without a Long Term Plan to cause or could be lost in the coming years. And parts of a sea wall collapsed last month adding further pressure. Authorities have also tried to enforce restrictions on extra. In water and new pumping systems experts say its not enough to save parts of jakarta from going under water fast response. Against the sinking and of flooding and then but it is like a pen killer only so we need to find a cure for a real. Subsidy to do grown what ive put basin. So we asked for what the better Water Management to the government all the while sea levels are still rising because of Climate Change and many here in jakarta say they have nowhere else to go. Here Mohammed Al Jazeera jakarta. Well joining us now from london is. Shes the head of Adaptation Research at the Grantham Research institute on Climate Change and the environment welcome to the program so we definitely have for a fact Sea Levels Rising here and tens and hundreds of millions of people are exposed tell us more about what coastal communities face and the impact on people and the economy. Yeah well thank you very much for having me its a pleasure talking to you about this Climate Change its really the defining issue of our generation and we see this not theres a distant threat as maybe we used to do a couple of years ago because it is now now real and we can see this happening around us we can see the impacts. Coastal areas are particularly exposed not just because of Sea Level Rise but also of other challenges so water usage also the fact that a lot of coastal cities particularly megacities at the moment we have around half of them half of all the global megacities are and coastal areas so these are massive and still growing. Size where people live where the livelihoods are and these are exposed from Sea Level Rise and rather more easily theyre exposed that means right now as displacement and so to. Well this this depends how well were getting our act together really i mean we still have a good chance to actually deal with the causes of Climate Change and all the commitment that were hearing at the moment around net 0 carbon that needs to be seen in the context of keeping the impacts at bay and manageable but even if we would achieve what we are currently committed to under the Paris Agreement which are says that we want to aim towards keeping temperature rise up to 2 degrees warming by the end of the century even if we would do that were still set for Sea Level Rise between 30. 60 centimeters by the end of the century and that might sound not significant but it is pretty significant it is much accelerated compared to what weve seen in the past and these are peoples livelihoods that are impacted from flops in some cases it will mean that people will have to move to other areas sort of jump in there with the troubles of the kind of attention youre talking about cost trillions of dollars for an issue if youre a rich country but if youre a poor country whos going to from to book well it is a really important issue and that is part of the negotiations that we see globally how can we support particularly Vulnerable Countries and particular those countries who is not hat the emissions that we have caused in the developed world in the parser how do we support those countries and there are already significant. Investment flows funds being made available but. More or less this is pledged rather than spent so the 1st task would be to make those pledges real and deliver but the 2nd point is we shouldnt really just see this as a cost you know this is also an investment i mean a. Its a necessary investment into our future but its also a chance to think about how we want to design a society in the future and that is very much the case often developing countries i mean people have country exposed to they they have you know ambitions they have a vision of what that future will look like and you know that is an opportunity that we need to assist them to design that and not just sort of say look you know this is a problem we cause that unfortunately you know youre going to be the one to suffer from it of course has a great deal of expertise out there not least from the netherlands lot of countries attorneys of netherlands what have we what can we learn from what theyve done there over the centuries and how they bring it forward to the the challenges and risks ahead. I mean the netherlands are an interesting case because theyve really drawn the lessons from a catastrophic event this was in the 1950 s. Where they had a really does suck at flood event and theyve drawn the lessons they made that central to government policy they made a commitment saying this cant happen we cant have anybody dying from a flop and that became the central policy they said invest it they but they also and this is the important part they have an approach that looks at this more holistically so yes they rely on diets on the sort of pole the system that they have developed where they actually try and stop the water and manage water flow but they also look at building codes and how you build and where you build and people really need to understand that even if you live behind it you know you cant really feel safe it needs to be sort of part of your psyche that you know what a risk is there netherlands being very low lying land so thats what we can learn from the netherlands. Its all about momentum isnt it and what to do from a mentor when you have people like donald trump saying rather disparagingly of new yorks efforts to build flood defenses spending billions on projects that its. An environmental idea what theyre doing and you just pick up mops and sweet broccoli. Well i think it is really important that we get not discouraged but also see that you know this is a huge opportunity its not not just an obligation to do it but often oblique out the geisha and for future generations for us to to see the positives and the opportunities and this and i i actually honestly believe that its those who are blocking this and the likes of. Donald trump other politicians you know they they are running out of arguments fairly soon and i think if we manage to actually build a more sort of public recognition that a this is urgent but this is also an opportunity for us to rethink how we want to try a t. To to cooperate and deal with the future and build our future and i think there is a good chance to actually get get this still reduced to lets say below 2 degrees which would still be significant but