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The First National Grassroots Conference
on Climate Change was successfully held on April 20 to 21,
2009 at the Balay Kalinaw, UP Diliman. The conference with its
theme “Confronting Climate Change: Unity of Grassroots
Organizations and Advocates for Action and Solidarity” was
organized by the Philippine Climate Watch Alliance (PCWA), a
broad multi-sectoral alliance formed to address the impacts of
global warming. The objectives of the conference are to
educate the basic sectors on the issue of climate change and
come up with recommendations and plan of actions on how to
mitigate and adapt to the effects of global warming at the
community level.
What emerged during the conference was that
some of the worst effects of global warming are already being
felt at the grassroots level where our poor communities are.
These communities are those most vulnerable to climate change
and yet they are ill equipped to face these effects.
Datu Monico Cayug, an indigenous leader from
Kalumaran, an inter-regional alliance of Lumads in Mindanao,
expressed his fears of global warming on upland communities
because they are already experiencing its effects. He said
that, “we are now experiencing the brunt of climate change in
our everyday lives. Farming for us has become more difficult
as stronger typhoons and longer droughts have destroyed our
crops. To make our situation worse, many of our people are
being displaced as our farmlands and forests are given to
transnational corporations for commercial mining, logging and
agrofuel plantations.”
The conference opened with a call for the
people to face head-on the issue of global warming. Bayan Muna
Rep. Satur Ocampo of the new coalition MAKA-BAYAN gave a
keynote speech on this issue. He pointed out that it is high
time that grassroots organizations collectively sit down and
discuss the worldwide crisis of global warming from the view
point of the toiling masses. Sen. Jamby Madrigal, the
chairperson of the Senate Committee on the Environment, graced
the event with a clear stand to address global warming and the
issue of climate change.
There were workshops that discussed flash
floods and landslides brought about by increased precipitation
due to climate change, as well as the rise of the sea level
that affects coastal communities, the decrease in agricultural
productivity leading to loss of food security and the health
effects on urban and rural populations. There were further
discussions on the core issues related to climate change: What
is it, how is happening, who is accountable and where should
grassroots communities bring the campaign to address global
warming.
Ms. Ros B. Guzman of IBON Foundation pointed
out in her presentation that while it is the industrialized
countries that are mainly responsible for the increase in
greenhouse gases, countries like the Philippines are bearing
the brunt of an increase of typhoon strength and frequency and
other effects of climate change. She termed the situation as
“Third World vulnerability, First World accountability.”
The issue of climate change is not just an
environmental issue but it is linked to the economic crisis
that the we are facing right now: The crisis brought about by
overproduction by the prevailing world economic system and the
vulnerabilities of our export-oriented and import dependent
local economy.
The effects of the changing climate on
health were discussed. Injury and deaths resulting from
disasters, spread of communicable diseases and health problems
arising from migration and competitions due to shrinking
global resources.
Problems were pointed out regarding the
Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) as an instrument of the
industrialized countries to respond to the Kyoto Protocol, the
international treaty to lower greenhouse gas emissions.
Similar problems with so-called solutions such as the
promotion of large-scale biofuel plantations were also
discussed by the body. The false promise of zero carbon
emissions of nuclear power technology was also pointed out
with regard to the issue of the revival of the Bataan Nuclear
Power Plant.
Even solutions such as planting carbon sinks
were qualified. Dr. Giovanni Tapang, chairman of the
scientists’ group AGHAM, pointed out that even if the
Filipinos continue to plant trees, this will only result in a
zero as the government continues to allow and even promote
commercial logging and mining which directly destroy our
forests and mountains.
It was also pointed out that unless
government reverses some of its key policies and programs that
destroy our environment, climate change initiatives would be
for naught. There are existing policies in strategic sectors,
such as energy, mining, forestry, agriculture, and trade,
which render the country more vulnerable to the impacts of
climate change.
The conference ended with a challenge to the
Philippine government to institute policies and programs to
genuinely mitigate climate change and help communities adapt
to its impacts.
(Saturay is currently teaching at the
National Institute of Geological Science at UP Diliman. He is
also the spokesperson of the Philippine Climate Watch
Alliance.)
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