At Large
Urgent
and unusual
By Rina
Jimenez-David
Philippine Daily
Inquirer
First Posted 01:12:00
01/14/2009
Filed Under: Climate
Change,
Environmental Issues
The logo of “The Philippine Imperative,” a private sector-led
response to the crisis of climate change, speaks volumes by itself.
It consists of a green exclamation point, illustrating that when it
comes to environmental issues in this country, “the urgency is now,”
said former congressman Neric Acosta, lead convener of The
Philippine Imperative, quoting Martin Luther King Jr.
The exclamation point is overlaid on an upside-down image of the
Philippines, a statement on the need to “turn things on their head”
since, the conveners say, “business as usual is no longer the way to
go.”
“The Philippine Imperative,” launched Tuesday at the Rockwell
Club, is a six-month project that gathers the business sector and
civil society “to draw up and propose a ‘roadmap’ that hopes to
complement the efforts of local and national government in combating
the effects of climate change in the Philippines.”
In the six months of the project’s life, the organizers will be
conducting, first, baseline research to generate the data that will
be used in a meeting of an “expert’s council” to formulate the
initial draft of the roadmap. The roadmap will then be presented in
a “People’s Summit” on April 24 which will be open to the public,
and will culminate in a celebration of Earth Day with a star-studded
concert titled, “Rakrakan para sa Kalikasan.” A “business summit”
will then follow to validate and refine the outputs of the People’s
Summit.
The roadmap will also be translated into regional action plans to
address key climate change concerns at the local level, which local
governments working with their local stakeholders can tackle.
Already, the first regional summit has been scheduled in March. It
involves the three regional development councils of the Visayas.
* * *
It seems quite a comprehensive plan—and it better work for all
our sakes.
Speakers at the launch were at great pains to point out that
climate change is not a problem we have to face in the future—it’s a
problem already confronting us, and in the past few years and
months, the country has felt the terrible toll of its
consequences.
“The Philippines ranks fourth among the world’s 20 climate
hotspots,” said Acosta, referring to the country’s vulnerability to
climate change impacts and manifestations. One such manifestation is
an increase in both the frequency and ferocity of weather
disturbances, with 24-25 storms descending on the country each year.
Elisea “Bebet” Gozun, former secretary of environment and natural
resources, who remains active in environmental advocacy, warned that
“the world will continue to get hotter,” and that the extraordinary
rise in temperature we’ve been experiencing in the last decade is
“caused entirely by human actions.” Lory Tan of the World Wildlife
Fund (WWF) for Nature, put it more succinctly: “lalakas, dadalas”
[increasing in strength and frequency], referring not just to
storms, but also to other consequences on the environment, such as
flooding, salt-water intrusion into fresh water aquifers, increasing
acidity of sea water, mass coral reef death and, most seriously,
human dislocation, suffering, destitution and death.
A most alarming piece of news is that, said Tan, they have found
that the aquifer which Misamis Occidental and Oriental rely on for
fresh water supply has been contaminated with salt water, and that
unless the locals act quickly to save the watershed, they will soon
have to buy their water.
* * *
“This is the calm before the storm,” proclaimed Tony Lavina, one
of the earliest practitioners of environmental law, and an expert on
the crafting of policy and laws to address environmental
concerns.
The need at the moment, he said, is an “overall framework that
includes all three possible responses: prevention, mitigation and
adaptation.” There is no reason for the Philippines to lag behind in
the formulation and implementation of solutions to the problem of
climate change, Lavina said, since he believes that “the Philippines
has the highest per capita concentration of environmental experts in
the world.”
Tan, pushing for the prioritization of adaptation measures,
warned that “there are limits to what even adaptation can do,” and
that “there will be costs.” However, he noted, “the more we wait,
the more we will spend” to counteract the impacts of climate
change.
This is why the business sector is considered a major player in
the Philippine Imperative. Federico “Piki” Lopez, president of First
Gen Corp., one of the project sponsors, asserted that “business as
usual has ceased to be an option,” noting that even now the company
has adopted measures to reduce the amount of carbon resources it
needs to generate electricity. This is the reason First Gen has
focused more and more on geothermal energy, but even this form of
energy will be at risk if deforestation continues because “we need
trees (and water sources) to generate thermal energy.”
* * *
“This broad problem requires bold action from a multitude of
sectors, not just the government,” a briefing paper notes. “We are
all stakeholders in this crisis. Thus, there is a need to bring as
many of the sectors together in order to develop a consensus in the
construction and implementation of solutions.”
Indeed, a wide-ranging group of organizers and supporters has
gathered to get the Philippine Imperative going. Aside from the
entities previously mentioned, the other movers behind this are ANC,
the Asian Development Bank, the Ateneo School of Government,
Business Mirror, Eurotiles, GMA Network, HSBC, Holcim,
pagbabago@pilipinas, Philippine Business for the Environment, the
Philippine Daily Inquirer, Pilipinas Shell, and South
Forbes. |
