The green energy conundrum

Last week, in what turned out to be a reunion of sorts for some colleagues, journalists from across the globe descended on the glittering Philippine International Convention Center for the 2024 East-West Center International Media Conference.

Some months ago, while I was in the United States as part of the Friends, Partners, Allies reporting program, our group of visiting Filipino journalists had the chance to visit the East-West Center in Hawaii and we were told about the conference in Manila. We were all excited to go.

Unfortunately, I missed it due to conflict in schedules but I heard it was a resounding success.

One of the sessions I was looking forward to attending but was unable to was the part on “New Climate Perspectives.”

Here, renowned oceanographer Sylvia Earle and several experts talked about new perspectives on climate and the environment.

This is especially timely and urgent at a time when the world is grappling with escalating climate crises.

We’ve all been experiencing extreme weather changes and it’s all because of the worsening climate problem.

Against this backdrop, better climate reporting is urgent, the experts said during the conference.

According to East-West Center News, the presenters, including Earle, urged the audience of more than 400 journalists and media professionals from 30 countries to explore holistic solutions that include affected communities and to hold everyone to account, even those pursuing alternative energies to fossil fuels.

Green energy isn’t always ‘clean’

One facet of climate reporting that is often overlooked is the global push to shift to renewable energy, according to Joan Carling, the executive director of Indigenous Peoples Rights International based in Baguio.

She said such push has the potential to do more harm than good, particularly in areas where Indigenous Peoples’ land is exploited.

“Journalists can also play a crucial role by conducting more in-depth investigative reporting on the abuses and injustices faced by Indigenous Peoples in the name of climate action,” Carling said.

“This includes uncovering land grabs, forced evictions, environmental degradation and human rights violations perpetrated by corporations and state authorities.”

This is a very good point because as Carling noted, certain renewable energy projects may require the mining of metals and rare-earth minerals, which poses huge ecological challenges as well as a human cost.

Some projects, including hydropower, have the potential to displace the local communities without their consent.

It’s not to say that we should junk RE and resign ourselves to coal.

But as Carling said, more funding needs to be directed to proven community-based renewable energy projects that involve indigenous communities so they may have a greater sense of ownership.

“What we need to do is look for other options … and there are other options that have already been proven, like bio-gas or community-based solar and renewable micro-hydro projects. These are the ones that have actually worked on the ground, if only they are supported.”

In the case of solar projects, I heard that there are also many sprawling parts of the country, particularly in the provinces, that are being bought by the private sector to convert the land into solar farms. There shouldn’t be a problem with this if this isn’t done at the expense of local communities or agricultural land.

The East-West report also quoted another expert, Nainoa Thompson, leader of the Hawai’i-based Polynesian Voyaging Society, who said that it is vital to integrate actionable science and data with “not just indigenous knowledge, but the practices, the views and the values that Indigenous People have learned over thousands of years of taking care of one’s place.”

“It’s the definition of stewardship.”

We can also learn from Fiji, according to Joeli Veitayaki, a strategic adviser at Blue Prosperity Fiji.

The East-West report quoted Veitayaki as saying that Indigenous Peoples of the Pacific have long practiced sustainable methods of living that conserve natural resources.

Community-led initiatives remain strong in Fiji, where the country’s largest marine assessment undertaken in over the last hundred years was just completed, Veitayaki said.

For instance, momentum is building around reclaiming beaches and replanting mangroves, among other projects.

“We are using a combination of indigenous and traditional knowledge and science-based methods to adapt to the existential threat that is affecting all aspects of our lives,” he said.

Hope spots

Earle, the world-renowned oceanographer, said efforts to address climate change are especially important for the world’s oceans since only three percent are considered fully protected from exploitation.
The founder of Mission Blue, an organization that is working to build a worldwide network of protected marine areas called “Hope Spots,” Earle detailed how the ocean plays a crucial role in maintaining the earth’s climate through what is called “blue carbon,” a term coined to convey the fact that more than half of all biological carbon kept out of Earth’s atmosphere is captured by living organisms in the sea.

Pollution, habitat destruction, overfishing, deep sea mining and other harmful practices are degrading natural ecosystems in the water and, in turn, on land, she told the journalists, noting that this has been severely affecting the so-called cycle of life, as quoted by the East-West report.

“Are we going to protect what remains of the natural fabric of life that keeps earth habitable? Or are we going to sacrifice it to developments like deep sea mining that are questionable in terms of whether we really need to do this for future prosperity?” she asked.

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Email: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @eyesgonzales. Column archives at EyesWideOpen on FB.