REPORTING on his recent trip to Bangkok where he attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, President Marcos Jr. said the discussions among his fellow leaders from the Asia-Pacific region centered on the real global risks of climate change.
“After the different problems that we were discussing, the overarching global concern for everyone is and should be global climate change issues,” he said. Clearly, the world leaders who met in Bangkok, representing as they do half of the globe, had forged a consensus to take a “central and principled scientific approach” to the problem of climate change, as Marcos termed it.
What is sorely lacking now is climate action from these economic leaders. And when we talk about action in relation to such a huge problem as global warming, changes in the planet’s weather and climate and rising sea levels, the issues of climate finance necessarily would surface.
Typhoons and hurricanes are getting stronger, severe and deadly, as evidenced by the recent tropical storm Paeng that devastated many parts of the country, killing 121 people, with 33 more missing, with P5.6 billion in national losses in infrastructure, buildings and properties, both public and private.
‘… when we talk about action in relation to such a huge problem as global warming, changes in the planet’s weather and climate and rising sea levels, the issues of climate finance necessarily would surface.’
In the local setting, the problem of climate change is recognized by Oxfam’s Climate Finance in Asia report which said that of the 18 Asian countries studied, the Philippines ranked 10th in terms of vulnerability and preparedness to climate change.
“The Philippines, like many other Asian countries, ranks really high in terms of climate vulnerability and really low when it comes to climate readiness,” Oxfam Pilipinas Country Director Lot Felizco said in a statement.
Felizco said the Philippines and other vulnerable countries in Asia have to face the devastating effects of a climate emergency with little and depleting resources, although this crisis was largely caused by developed countries which benefited from it. This observation is an exact echo of what former President Duterte had said about the issue.
Felizco correctly pointed out that although we are working on measures to improve our preparedness, every time we are hit by extreme weather events, we have to deal with further loss, making it even harder to be ready for the climate crisis.
The Bangkok APEC and similar gatherings should endeavor to become more relevant by calling on the G20 to ramp up their support for climate finance — not through loans but by means of grants — and the call must be sounded by countries most vulnerable to climate change, such as the Philippines, Bangladesh, Haiti, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kenya and many others.
