"This is no longer the time for rhetoric but for urgent action.
If the government were really serious about confronting climate
change, they should have prioritized the passage of the RE bill
long ago. How can the President speak of meeting the challenge of
climate change when there are no mechanisms in place specifically
to back up this action? Worse, the government continues to invest
in dirty energy projects," said Greenpeace Southeast Asia Campaigns
Director Von Hernandez.
Greenpeace has been challenging the Philippine government to
take immediate action to mitigate climate change impacts by
enacting the RE Bill. Climate change impacts have been manifested
in the country in devastating storms, floods, extreme
precipitation, and droughts, leading to calamities which have
destroyed lives and property, and have crippled an already
struggling economy. Last Friday, a new UN report detailed the
strongest warnings yet from the international scientific community
on the threat of dangerous climate change.
The latest report on the science of climate change from the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) meeting in
Paris concludes that continuing business-as-usual practices
globally is likely to increase the earth's average temperature
between 1.1 degrees Celsius and 6.4 degrees Celsius above 1980 to
1999 levels by 2095, leading to more drought, heat waves, floods
and stronger hurricanes, rapid melting of ice sheets and rising sea
levels. Among the major findings is the statement that the
intensity of tropical storms is likely to increase in the coming
years.
The Philippines has been bearing the brunt of climate change
impacts for more than a decade. The Greenpeace report
"Crisis or Opportunity: Climate Change Impacts" detailed trends
in extreme weather events in the country which validated earlier
IPCC assessments that climate change has and will be manifested in
"changes in frequency, intensity, and duration of extreme [weather]
events." The most recent calamity from extreme weather events to
hit the country was the series of strong typhoons by the end of
2006 which inflicted major damage to lives and the economy.
With Friday's latest IPCC report, acknowledged by experts to
contain the most dire assessments yet, the UN has called for
drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, and for a more
rapid and determined global response to make this possible.
"President Arroyo has stated that the reduction of carbon
dioxide (CO2) emissions is part of the government's long term
agenda to address this impending disaster. Action, however, has to
start now if we are truly committed to this goal. The RE Bill must
be passed and strengthened with legally-binding targets to reflect
our sincere determined response to last Friday's dire warnings.
Alongside this, the government must halt the expansion of coal
energy, one of the world's major climate change culprits," said
Hernandez.
The government has nine coal plants either planned or in already
in the pipeline this year, which, together, are projected to
increase the country's CO2 emissions by as much as 11% over the
next several years. And while the government has proclaimed that it
plans to stay within tolerable limits of CO2 emissions, it has
recently inaugurated the 210 MW STEAG AG coal fired power plant in
Misamis Oriental. "
While the RE Bill languishes in the Senate from lack of
attention," added Hernandez.
Greenpeace is an independent, campaigning organization which uses non-violent, creative confrontation to expose global environment problems, and to force the solutions which are essential to a green and peaceful future.