By Danilo P. Padua
There is no way that the Cordillera region, or most of it anyway, will be submerged by rampaging water from melting ice somewhere in the North Pole, unless there is a flood of Biblical proportion.
On the other hand, most of the lands near the seashore such as those in the Ilocos and Cagayan Valley regions will soon be erased from our maps if nothing is done with the dire current climate change situation. It is easy to blame the industrialized countries for this uncomfortable condition. While economically big countries have exploited countries like the Philippines, it doesn’t help to rant against them for bringing us into this horrible hole.
Whether we like it or not, we are a party to this rotten situation. We are actually helping destroy Mother Earth. Unless we recognize this and wake up early enough, the dire situation will worsen quicker than we can imagine. We see hundreds of factories illegally dumping wastes where they are not supposed to be dumped. We heap highly critical statements against them calling for commensurate penalties. We don’t see millions of individuals (including ourselves) burning here and there, littering everywhere with mindless abandon, contributing to global warming and environmental degradation in the process. And we don’t want to be penalized? That is crazy, absurd, and stupid (the exact words used by President Duterte when he initially slammed the Paris Agreement).
Last December, 2015, the Philippines was one of the 194 countries which signed the Paris Agreement on climate change. Still under former President Noynoy Aquino’s administration, the Philippines committed to reduce 70% of our greenhouse emission by 2030-the level of such emission being 2000. That was based on condition that the country will be provided with support from developing countries to switch to renewable technologies. When PNOY made the commitment, it was unjustly ridiculed by a number of locals saying that the contribution of the country to greenhouse gas emission is miniscule, very minimal. It turned out that only 37 out of the 194 initial signatories had emissions higher than ours! That means that we have relatively higher emissions than most countries, which says a lot of our actual contribution to environmental degradation
Only about 111 countries ratified the agreement last October, 2016. In Southeast Asia, only the Philippines and Cambodia had not ratified it yet. Spain, United Kingdom, the Russian Federation and Iran are among the prominent countries that have yet to ratify it.
On assumption to power by President Duterte, he made it known to the world, what he feels about the agreement. In passionately defending the interest of the Philippines, he said he will not sign the agreement since it will hamper the country’s development. He was saying in effect that the country should first be allowed to reach industrial parity with other advance nations before it will consider ratifying it. Well, the president is already singing a different tune at the moment. I would say, that is to the advantage of the country.
Part of Article 9 of the Agreement states that developed countries shall provide financial resources to assist developing country Parties with respect to both mitigation and adaptation in continuation of their existing obligation under the convention. This is now being studied by developed countries. If we will not ratify it, we will be missing out on the help to be made available on the table.
The greenhouse gas, more specifically the carbon dioxide, emission is mainly from fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas) burning through electricity and transport. So a well-lighted house or a new vehicle should not give extra joy to us. We should actually be happier when there is a black-out or your car conks out!
The agriculture sector, unfortuynately, has been tagged as one of the major gas emitters. As high as 24% worldwide and a little bit higher in the country.
There are other clear reasons why we are also contributing individually and collectively to the global warming. When we make new vegetable terraces, we are doing it at the expense of trees. We are therefore destroying plants that could otherwise help use up emitted carbon dioxide.The same is true when we cut down trees. Development is not an excuse to cut them. We remove the trees, we start choking ourselves.
Applying our farms with synthetic fertilizers is guarantee of getting bad health, something like a killing-me-softly process. It would then be best to go organic for better protection of health and the environment.
Saving rain water, and developing green roofs- that is, our roofs should be planted with plants and crops that we need, are some of other things that we can do to help minimize climate change.
It’s about time that we earnestly tap our natural resources for renewable energy: solar, wind and geothermal. By the way, if the Philippines ratify the Paris Agreement, we will surely get some relief in developing such alternative, renewable energy.**
