GMA declares Nov. 19-25 climate change consciousness week

MANILA, Philippines – President Arroyo yesterday called for collective participation of the public and private sectors in a nationwide environmental awareness campaign as she declared Nov. 19 to 25 of each year as “Global Warming and Climate Change Consciousness Week.”

“The warming of the earth’s surface is undermining our national food and energy security and therefore requires broad and intensive information and education campaign to impress on the general public the awesome and terrifying consequences of this phenomenon,” Mrs. Arroyo said in signing Proclamation No. 1667.

Mrs. Arroyo said there is need to secure the collective cooperation of the public in finding solutions to the problem, adding that “these concerns require the urgent and thoughtful participation of our citizens as well as the collective action of private and public sectors at all levels.”

Presidential Adviser on Global Warming and Climate Change Secretary Heherson Alvarez said he would convene today the multi-sectoral Carbon Cutting Congress versus Climate Change in Malacañang to come up with a national consensus on how to reduce the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.

He said members of the business sector, academe, science community, religious groups, civil society, non-government organizations and representatives from local governments would attend the conference.

“We also invited representatives from the transport sector as well as owners of power plants and commercial buildings to the congress,” Alvarez said during the kick-off ceremony of the weeklong event at the National Library in Manila. – Helen Flores