The climate change crisis may be too alien yet for many Filipinos to comprehend. Unfortunately, climate change or essentially global warming is producing the most impact on the Philippines through more destructive typhoons, such as Yolanda in 2013 and Odette just last week.
The Philippines can prepare for these disasters but mitigating measures to fend off climate change will cost a lot of money and divert funds for education and poverty alleviation. Thus, the world’s biggest polluters or greenhouse gas emitters—the United States, China, Russia, India and Japan—should be held accountable for global warming and the disasters it spawns. Or at least they should pay for and finance mitigation and adaptation measures needed to weather the impact of global warming.
Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III correctly noted that the world’s biggest polluters, especially the industrialized countries, should provide the funding for green projects that mitigate global warming. In the case of green energy projects or non-fossil based fuels, the funding should not be shouldered through tax breaks by Filipinos, who have reeled from the worsening consequences of climate change triggered by carbon emissions.
Those who polluted and continue to pollute the Earth’s environment through unthinking industrialization starting 200 years ago, in the words of Mr. Dominguez, must pay for the grants, investments and subsidies needed for the most vulnerable countries to adapt to climate change.
The finance chief made the same urgent call during the recent United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland in the United Kingdom. Dominguez has observed the Philippines accounts for just 0.3 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, but it bears the brunt of the consequences of the climate crisis. The Philippines is on the list of countries with highest risk for worsening natural calamities caused by rising global temperatures.
Global warming, it seems, will worsen in the coming years. As oceans heat up, we can expect more energy-intensive storms to strike the most vulnerable nations. The Philippines will once again bear the consequences of the pollution and heat being trapped in the atmosphere.