RP bearing brunt of climate change cost

The environmental group Greenpeace warned yesterday that citizens of the Philippines and other developing countries are suffering from economic losses caused by typhoons and drought brought about by the climate change.

Abigail Jabines, climate and energy campaigner of Greenpeace Southeast Asia, said the impact of climate change is being felt in the Philippines with the extreme weather disturbances such as floods, drought, stronger typhoons and even forest fires.

She said the abnormal weather condition, which has already caused losses amounting to several billions of pesos, is attributed to the dumping of so-called greenhouse gases by factories and motor vehicles in the atmosphere that disturb the normal cycle of climate.

"The impacts of climate change will be most catastrophic to countries who are the least able to cope," said Jabines.

Jabines said four successive typhoons toward the end of 2004 alone cost the Philippines P7.61 billion, while a 1998 drought in the south damaged P828 million worth of crops.

In a media briefing ahead of the coming week’s climate change conference in Nairobi, Kenya, Greenpeace urged the government to invest in renewable energy sources, citing studies suggesting that unchecked climate change will have disastrous economic impact, especially on developing countries.

Jabines said developed countries are not solely to blame for dumping billions of tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.

Instead of avoiding industrialized nations’ mistakes the Philippines still relies on coal for energy, which is the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel, she said.

"It is imperative for the Philippines to switch to renewable and sustainable energy sources," Jabines said, noting that the country has harnessed less than one percent of its energy needs from renewable resources such as solar and wind power.

Jabines said heavy concentration of carbon dioxide emitted from coal-fire power plants is disturbing the world climate cycle.

A report this week by Sir Nicholas Stern, a top British government economist, warned that if the world does not act to halt global warming, it would cause an economic catastrophe on the scale of the Great Depression and the two world wars.

Studies have shown that human-produced carbon dioxide emissions heat the earth’s surface, leading to more water vapor in the air and contributing to higher temperatures.

Carbon dioxide or CO2, methane and nitrous oxide are the most common greenhouse gases after water vapor, according to the World Meteorological Organization. Scientists say that carbon dioxide and other gasses, primarily from fossil fuels, trap heat in the atmosphere and have warmed the Earth’s surface an average one degree Fahrenheit (0.6 degrees Celsius) over the past century.

However, the idea of human activity causing climate change is a hotly debated issue, with some scientists saying, among other things, that natural climate variability is not well understood and may be greater than once thought. - Perseus Echeminada, AP