A call to action on Climate Change

Policy makers, scientist and students gathered in a forum on Climate Justice: Science, Policy, Faith at Ateneo De Manila University discussing the recent condition of climate change in the world and how the Philippines might response to the global problem.

Adaptation, Energy use and climate and disaster risk training are the things that government should focus on addressing environmental issues, experts said.

Dr. Gemma Teresa T. Narisma, a climate scientist and executive director of Manila Observatory, explained at the forum that those countries that emits the least greenhouse gases are the ones that might get affected by disasters caused by climate change.

She also added that, the Philippines, which was on the third spot, has been consistent part of the top five of World Risk Index as a result of exposure and vulnerability since 2011until 2017 because the country is at the heart of the hazards like typhoons.

Typhoon Ompong was the recent typhoon that devastated the country having at least 1.4 million people who got affected.

On the recent report released by United Nation Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, report said that the Earth might face devastating consequences of climate change like extreme drought, food shortages and deadly flooding, unless there’s an “unprecedented” effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

Environmental lawyer Atty. Antonio La Vina, also at the forum, said that we are on the age of climate justice pointing out that the biggest challenge in addressing the problem is political.

La Vina also added that adaptation and mitigation requires local solution to the problem not just because climate change is a global problem that needs global response.

Pope Francis’s was once said that people need a unified global action against climate change, global warming and environmental problems as his Laudato Si called on the people to live harmony with nature, rather than dominate it.

Fr. Jose Ramon Villarin, president of Ateneo and a climate scientist, stressed at the forum that environmental crisis is ultimately a spiritual crisis.