Cebu coal-fired power plant violating every single international climate agreement

Our community is facing a debacle and a tragedy with the high-handed disregard of the rights of the people to a safe, healthy and sustainable environment. The existence of coal-fired power plants is a clear violation of international climate agreements, particularly in bringing down carbon emissions and protecting local communities.

The power plants arrogance is acquired, mainly due to the inutility of national agencies   and local politicians who could have done something to stop the environmental degradation that is ongoing. These agencies and politicians are guilty, as demonstrated, of limiting their intervention and chosing to be silent, to tolerate these blatant violations. These agencies have certainly failed to protect the general welfare of the people and haven’t penalized the perpetrators.

We will now bring these issues to the attention of the international community, to multilateral agencies, these violations committed by these power plants and their political cohorts of various international climate agreements.

We will bring them up during the sixteenth session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP 16); the fourteenth session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA 14.); and at workshops pursuant to the Cancun Agreements which will take place in Bangkok from Sunday, 3 April through Friday, 8 April 2011.

We will also attend pre-sessional workshops on 3 to 5 April 2011 at the United Nations Conference Centre (UNCC) of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), Rajdamnern Nok Avenue, Bangkok 10200, Thailand.

During these discussions, we will report how our province, instead of pursuing a dramatic de-carbonization by pursuing the development of carbon neutral energy sources, has instead increased our climate footprint by encouraging the construction of more coal-fired power plants. The current direction of our province is defeatist to say the least, and has drastically lowered our ambition target to bring down carbon emission.

At one workshop there, we will have a chance to highlight the irresponsibility of our institutions for having no adaptation and mitigation program, while continually making communities more vulnerable to the impacts of climate induced tragedies such as storm surges, flooding, dengue, rising sea level, among others.

The need for us to get our act together and pursue the development and mainstreaming of a province wide disaster risks reduction management program is very important.

We urge the DENR to further pursue the cease and desist order against a particular power plant. The local community is now suffering because of this plant’s irresponsibility and conscious violations of protocols as coal dust is spreading in the area since the start of their operation. DENR should stop warming their seats and act decisively. We can’t afford another tragedy to happen again.

CO2 Facts: Humanity’s Carbon Emissions (2000 – 2009) 1.) Fossil Fuels & Cement - 88% / 7.7 billion metric tonnes per year; 2.) Land Use Change – 12% 1.1 billion metric tonnes per year

Where it goes: 1.) Atmosphere – 47%, 4.1 billion metric tonnes per year; 2.) Land - 27%, 2.4 billion metric tonnes per year; 3.) Oceans – 26%, 2.3 billion tonnes per year 350.org South-East Asia