PRESS STATEMENT
A call
for the Philippine government:
Implement Measures to help people adapt to Climate Change now!
The Center for Environmental Concerns-Philippines (CEC-Phils) lauds
the move of the Philippine delegation to the 14th Conference of Parties
on Climate Change in Poznan to join 43 small island states who called
for tougher goals â?? including a proposal for rich nations
to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels
by 2020 and more than 95% by 2050. Such an initiative brings to the
fore the greater accountability of the industrialized countries as
far as the global warming issue is concerned.
Yet, CEC-Phils laments the fact
that such progressive views are not matched by the national government's
actual efforts to truly address the issue. Indeed, developed countries
have to be made to truly account for Climate Change. No amount of
making the Philippines
reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, which constitutes 0.3% of the
world's, can alter the impact of the damage these countries have already
wrought on the world's climate, unless these developed countries,
themselves significantly reduce outright their staggering
GHG emissions.
An urgent and more critical concern
for the Philippine government, thus, is not so much in cutting down
its emissions but saving the lives of people in marginalized communities
which we read so often in news. Fresh in our minds are the communities
that have been washed away by landslides and floods every time a typhoon
visits the country, such as in Leyte, Quezon, Bicol and Panay. This
is not to mention the spate of epidemics in urban or congested communities
or the reduction of farm produce due to drought or pest infestation.
In spite of the increase in frequencies
of these disasters in recent years, the government still has to complete
and distribute geo-hazard maps to vulnerable towns and provinces,
inform people of the risks they continue to face and engage them in
emergency measures they can best undertake. We also see communities
with uncompleted or faulty flood control projects and non-functional
irrigation systems.
Since the first national conference
on climate change in October 2007 in Legaspi City to last month's
Malacañang Conference, the Energy Secretary and the
Presidential Adviser on Climate Change have been calling for mitigation
measures and GHG emission reduction. There may be more funds available
for so-called market-based solutions to global
warming than there are for adaptation measures which are directed
to help countries and communities to cope with the impacts of global
warming, but this should not let our government lose focus on issues
that matter most to our populace.
Carbon Trading and Clean Development
Mechanism are being assailed now in several fronts as these are measures
that allow private corporations and transnational corporations to
skirt around the urgent need to bring down the GHG emissions, while
they continue with their pollutive ways and amass profits at the expense
of the people and the environment.
Climate change is already happening,
wreaking havoc on the lives of people especially in the countryside.
It means less stable food supply, more extreme weather events such
as droughts, epidemics, floods, typhoons and landslides, destruction
of properties and loss of
precious lives.
In this light, the CEC-Phils,
together with a new network, the Philippine Climate Watch Alliance
(PCWA) calls on the Philippine government to prioritize the implementation
of necessary adaptation mechanisms with the advent of climate change.
Moreover, we call for a stop to large-scale mining, logging, construction
of coal-fired power plants and all other activities that continues
to destroy the environment and threaten the people's welfare and their
rights to a healthful ecology and access to natural resources. These
would be the
more important steps the Philippine government should take to address
climate change.
Reference: Frances Quimpo, Executive
Director, Center for Environmental Concerns-Philippines, mobile: 0917.884.6325,
email: cecphils@gmail.com
**CEC-Philippines is a non-government organization promoting people-oriented
environmental education, research and volunteer work among the masses
and for the masses of the Filipino people. It holds office at 26 Matulungin
St., Central District, Quezon City, Philippines and may be contacted
thru the following:
--
FRANCES Q. QUIMPO
Center for Environmental Concerns-Philippines, Inc. (CEC)
