Davao least vulnerable to climate change impact

Friday, December 9, 2011

DAVAO City is the least vulnerable to climate change impacts compared to three other cities in the Philippines, a study by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF-Philippines) revealed.

WWF-Philippines vice chair and chief executive officer Jose Ma. Lorenzo Tan said Davao came way better than the cities of Baguio, Iloilo and Cebu in the paper titled “Business Risk Assessment and the Management of Climate Change Impacts.”

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The study started in August of 2010 and was done in partnership with the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) Foundation Inc.

The study showed city-specific socio-economic baseline data for the selected cities. The selection of the cities was based mainly on the occurrence of storms, floods, drought and other extreme climate events during the past decade.

WWF said of the four cities, Davao was seen as the least vulnerable among the cities with room for sustainable, integrated area development.

Davao was also cited because it is typhoon-free.

Based on the data that was presented Thursday at the Marco Polo Hotel Davao, Davao has a level of vulnerability of only 5.68. Baguio ranks the highest at 7.43, Iloilo 6.69 and Cebu 6.55.

"Knowing that our country is a shared gift and responsibility, BPI firmly believes that companies must take advantage of business opportunities such as rethinking future investments and remodeling future infrastructures for the nation to grow and prosper under the circumstances brought about by this study," BPI president Aurelio Montinola III said.

To comprehensively grasp the trends drawn from existing climate studies and city-specific socio-economic information, the Climate Risk Assessment Study worked with scenario building exercises and linked their predictions for each city to an action-oriented proposal for present day decisions.

Moreover, the research used a three-vector analysis to gauge the level of vulnerability of each city -- climate/environmental exposure, socio-economic sensitivity and adaptive capacity by using historical data for a 20-year period, from 1990 to 2010.

Baguio, as the study indicates, is the most vulnerable to climate change impacts such as landslides because of its high rainfall and being the most densely populated city.

Aside from its rapid urbanization and flood-prone nature, Iloilo has managed to keep population growth down at 1.53 percent to address the population density issue.

Moreover, though Cebu remains prominent in manufacturing and trade industries, it has an opportunity to reinvent itself with investments to "climate-proof" infrastructure and technology to strengthen its current economic supply chains.