By hurting the poor most, climate change now threatens to unravel those efforts, and even put them in reverse. A report last month for the Asian Development Bank (ADB), To Foster Inclusive Growth, Tackle Inequality and Climate Change, found that the poor were hit first and hardest when natural disasters strike.
By living on the edge, physically and financially, they have the least capacity to cope. The authors of the ADB report concluded that fighting inequality and climate change can work hand in hand — by pursuing policies which help the poor can boost their resilience to climate change, and, equally, curbing carbon emissions can reduce inequality by limiting future climate disasters. We, in the Philippines, understand the dangers, after Super-Typhoon Haiyan killed more than 6,300 people in 2013, left some six million people without jobs, and pushed an extra 1.5 million into extreme hardship.
We also know that our region is at risk. The rating agency Standard & Poor’s last year ranked more than 100 economies according to their climate vulnerability. They placed five Southeast Asian nations in the top 10, including the Philippines, reflecting our agrarian economies, coastal cities, vulnerability to more intense tropical cyclones, and relatively low income.
The Philippines is stepping up its fight against climate change, even with limited resources. Our installed capacity of zero-carbon, geothermal power is second only to the United States, and we are implementing a national strategy for climate-smart development.
But we must do more. How can we secure the greatest benefit from a global agreement on climate change, to be reached in Paris at the end of this year?
The world’s richer, industrialized nations must act decisively to curb their greenhouse gas emissions. They have the responsibility and the means. They have grown their economies by burning fossil fuels, creating historical carbon emissions, which will remain in the atmosphere for many centuries. And they enjoy lifestyles, which we can only aspire to.
We insist that they give their fair share of climate finance, to help us cut our greenhouse gas emissions and build our resilience to natural disasters. They have pledged $100 billion climate aid by 2020, and are still a long way short. Many developed countries have fallen short, too, of targets for development assistance.
However, we must also be climate leaders. Southeast Asia must seize its chance for a strong Paris agreement on climate change, for two reasons:
First is because our countries lie in harm’s way— from typhoons, crop failures, sea level rise, damage to coral reefs and acidifying oceans. Already, the Philippines spend more than 0.5% of its national economic output each year coping with natural disasters. Through our own ambitious targets to install renewable energy, limit carbon emissions and adapt to unavoidable climate change, we can remind and put pressure on others to do more to keep these climate risks at bay.
Second is because economists, investors and engineers are ever more convinced that a low-carbon economy can also be more prosperous. The construction costs of wind and solar power are declining, and once built and paid for, these supply almost free, indigenous electricity. Mass transport systems can cut carbon emissions, congestion, road deaths, and air pollution, and give slum dwellers access to city center jobs. By being cleaner, healthier and more efficient, low-carbon cities can attract and retain capital and talent, boosting productivity and competitiveness.
Like many Asian economies, the Philippines still depend on fossil fuels including coal and oil. This is changing, however. Last year, we more than doubled our installed wind capacity, and even ranked third in all Asia for new wind power projects—behind China and India.
An even greater revolution beckons in solar power, whose installation costs have fallen by three quarters since 2000. Filipino schools and shopping malls are now discovering the huge energy savings they can make by turning rooftops into power plants.
Investors are ready to help. Last year, the world invested some $270 billion in renewable energy, including $131 billion in developing countries. But the Philippines saw less than $1 billion of this. We must attract more funds, where more ambitious targets will help.
The fight against climate change is a fight for human justice, innovation and most of all, cooperation. Developed countries may have to bear more responsibility, but this is also our fight. As President Benigno Aquino III earlier said: “Together, we must face these challenges and surmount them, or together we will suffer the consequences of inaction.”
Let us declare our ambition in our pledge under a Paris agreement.
Source: Manila Bulletin | 22 July 2015
