President Donald Trump’s pullout of the United States from the Paris Climate Accord is the dumbest decision so far of his presidency.
It has proved so unpopular and outraged so many that so far 1,219 (as per wearestillin.com) states, cities, businesses, and institutes of higher education have promised to abide by the provisions of the accord on their own.
The participants “represent 120-million Americans and contribute $6.2 trillion to the US economy.” Among the widely recognized companies that support this move are Apple, eBay, Google, Intel, and Microsoft.
President Rodrigo Roa Duterte has often been compared to Trump, and in many ways their behavior and attitudes mirror each other’s, but at least Duterte has seen fit to finally sign the Paris Accord, despite threatening last year to repudiate the Philippines’ commitment to support it. (He claimed that the country needs to further industrialize and that checks on carbon dioxide emissions would stymie economic growth.)
The Philippines has vowed as its contribution to the Paris Agreement to bring its carbon emissions down by 70 percent by 2030, with carbon dioxide reductions to be made in the sectors of energy, forestry, industry, transport, and waste.
However, the implementation of national development targets and mitigation initiatives is contingent on many factors, including funding, external assistance, and the buildup of capacity, capability, and technology transfers to support adaptation, mitigation, and other risk management measures.
The question is, are we doing enough, fast enough?
The Philippines, an archipelago of more than 7,000 islands, is one of twenty countries most vulnerable to climate change. Climate trends including an increase in the global average temperature and a rise in sea level will have a significant impact on certain geographical areas such as coastal areas, which may experience flooding, changes in water temperature and acidity, and so on, impacting marine life and habitat.
The devastation wrought by the storm surges of Super Typhoon “Haiyan” (“Yolanda”) is only one of the many manifestations of this phenomenon and a harbinger of things to come, should the world fail in its efforts to stem global warming.
Climactic effects including an increase in extreme local weather events, such as hurricanes, monsoons, typhoons, torrential rain, or longer dry periods and more frequent heat waves, are likely to be evident very quickly in the sectors of agriculture, forestry, and fisheries.
The consequent negative consequences on farming are damage to crops, forestry stands, orchards, buildings and equipment, floods, loss of harvests, erosion, and human casualties. There will be a corresponding increase in the cost of food, forage, and biofuel crops as well as timber. Rising sea levels will cause flooding, forcing relocation of inhabitants and causing swamping of agricultural lands.
On the fisheries side, warmer waters contributed to the death of a quarter of the world’s coral reefs in the past few decades. Coral reefs are habitats of many kinds of fish and marine organisms, and many of these have died as a result of warmed waters.
Warming can also cause changes in the length of the season, and may impact mating habits of fish and other marine creatures. Seawater is becoming more acidic due to carbon dioxide dissolving in the oceans. This has impact on coral reefs, other marine habitats, and on marine life in general.
In developing countries such as the Philippines, where a significant number of the population derive their livelihood or food from farming and fishing and its related activities, there are anticipated to be heavy negative effects due to climate change over the medium- and long-term.
Our commitment to the Paris Accord is a step in the right direction, but the urgency of the threats from climate change, in view of our country’s vulnerability, cannot be overemphasized. There are many ways that Filipinos can help the effort as individuals and communities.
For one, industrialization can still be ramped up, but with the responsible use of clean energy sources, particularly solar. Tree-planting movements popular during the 1970s should be brought back and efforts redoubled. To ensure food security, people should plant vegetables and fruit trees rather than ornamentals.
On this issue, Trump may have made the wrong decision, but some Americans are acting to save their country as best they can. We are more fortunate in that Duterte has seen the wisdom of partnering with the rest of the world to stem the threat of climate change.
But the important work is still ahead of us, and we are running out of time.
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Dr. Ortuoste is a California-based writer. FB: Jenny Ortuoste / Twitter: @jennyortuoste