Sunday, November 11, 2007 Sanchez: Live with it By Benedicto Sanchez Nature Speak
THINGS are getting to get worse before the situation becomes the worst. That seems to be the message that I got from the just-concluded two day National Conference-Workshop on Climate Change held in Sulo Hotel, Quezon City.
Filipino climate change experts gave us the heads-up on greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions after Kyoto Protocol. Prof. Antonio La Vina said that Kyoto has little to show in GHG mitigation. Very incremental, not much than before the signing.
Since its 1997 signing, 175 Parties have ratified the Protocol. Of these, 36 countries and the European Economic Community are required to reduce GHG emissions below levels specified for each of them in the treaty (representing over 61.6 percent of emissions from Annex I countries).
Back then, La Vina who took part in international negotiations as a former DENR undersecretary batted to exclude developing countries such as China and India, assuming that it will take several decades before China will spew these gases to the level of the EEC.
Well, he admitted he was wrong. Now China emits 25 percent, or even slightly more than that of the USA. Between them, they generate half of the world's GHGs.
More sobering figures. Of the total GHG emissions, 25 countries generate 85 percent. The Philippines is nowhere in that league. That's the good news. We don't belong in the rogues gallery of global environmental villains.
Then La Vina made a brash but ominous warning. The dire effects won't be counted in decades to come, but in years. I assumed before 2017. Well within my lifetime.
The bad news is that whatever countries such as the Philippines do won't make a dent in the global reduction efforts.
In other words, we might have the best and the brightest minds in the DENR starting from its secretary, and no one except the Filipinos would notice. And we know that the DENR leadership is so far from being in that category.
The inescapable conclusion? Instead of mitigation, go for adaptation. In plain English, if you can't reduce the gas emissions, learn to live with the effects of global warming.
Learning to live with global warming means we have to brace ourselves for more frequent and more powerful typhoons, more forest fires. That means we either get a surfeit of water such as when the sea level rises or when we experience flash floods. Or we get so few of freshwater because of longer droughts or the salinization of our underground water, which Negrenses outside the BACIWA loop rely on.
That was also the central message that meteorologist Leoncio Amadore said global climate change could have adverse effects on Philippine weather. He should know. Amadore was a former official of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA).
As if to punctuate their assessments, it felt like summer in Metro-Manila, not the balmy weather that I expect during these Christmas months. I had to go to my room frequently to cool myself in its airconditioning. The centralized aircon in the plenary proved almost useless against the body heat of many participants inside the cramped session hall.
But Amadore is more optimistic than La Vina. He is pushing for the passage of the renewable energy bill being advocated by Greenpeace. Under the measure, the Philippines will reduce its use of carbon-emitting fuel sources such as crude oil and coal, and shift toward the use of renewable sources such as geothermal, wind and hydroelectric.
At any rate, La Vina advised the participants not to "catastrophize" when talking of climate change. His caveat is based more on pragmatic grounds.
Otherwise, going from denial to anger, then to acceptance and resignation and learning to live with climate change, means not doing anything at all. It means going to business as usual, enjoying life while we can before catastrophe strikes.
Now, that's the real catastrophe.
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