By ANTHONY IAN CRUZ
Malaya
January 17, 2008

Cimate change events have cost the Philippines billions of pesos in damages, apart from the loss of many lives, according to a number of experts.

“From 1975 to 2002, tropical cyclones have resulted to losses of P4.578 billion due to damage to property, including damage to agriculture worth 3.047 billion pesos,” said global environmental group Greenpeace.

“Drought in Southern Mindanao in 1998, the 2nd hottest year on record, incurred crop losses amounting to P828 million. And damages due to four successive tropical cyclones towards the end of 2004 cost the nation an estimated P7,615.98 million,” it added.

At least two other studies confirm the huge costs of climate change.

In its 2007 study, the Germany-based think-tank Germanwatch found the Philippines as the country “hardest-hit” by climate change events in 2006, including supertyphoons Reming and Milenyo.

According to Global Climate Risk Index of Germanwatch, 25 disasters hit the Philippines in 2006, resulting in 513 deaths and in economic losses worth $4.45-billion, up from the average $584-million in the 1987-2006 period.

It added that economic losses due to climate change were almost 10 percent of the world total.

A total of 8.5 million Filipinos were adversely affected by the events, the study said.

Another study by Dr. Leoncio Amadore, one of the Philippines foremost meteorologists, also showed the adverse impact of climate change to the country.

In his report “Crisis or Opportunity: Climate Change Impacts and the Philippines”, Dr. Amadore said that from 1975 to 2002 intensifying tropical cyclones caused an annual average of 593 deaths and damage to property of P4.5-billion ($83-million), including damage to agriculture of P3-billion ($5-million).

Glen Rabonza, National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) Executive Officer, has also said that the agency expects stronger typhoons in 2008 that could trigger calamities in the country.

“Even without climate change, we are already battered by natural calamities. So, this could get worse,” said Rabonza. According to Rabonza, there are two ongoing studies to establish the impact of climate change in the Philippines.

One of them, a $15-million climate change adaptation project from 2007-2009 aims to “develop and demonstrate the systematic diagnosis of climate-related problems and the design of cost-effective adaptation measures”.

It is jointly funded by the World Bank and the Global Environment Fund.

The United Nations Development Program is behind the other $12-million study.

According to a paper by Lorenzo Tan of the World Wildlife Fund, “the Philippines, as an archipelago, is a country at risk” and that common people will sooner or later will feel the pinch of climate change.

Tan cited as an example “government estimates that as much as 21 million hectares of our total land area is built up. This leaves barely 9 million hectares as biologically productive land – barely 1,000 square meters per Filipino.”

That may not be enough, says Tan, due to “overlapping classifications, i.e., protected areas overlap with indigenous people’s domains that overlap as well with mining exploration areas and watersheds.”

“In short, we have allocated more land than we actually have,” Tan said.

Tan said that “the continued absence of well-defined national land and water use plans, compounded by constantly changing rules of the game, feeds the impression that we, as a nation, are unpredictable. This deprives us of solid foundations for investment and development. This situation further aggravates forest loss, and leaves us exposed to climate change.”

The 35 to 40 million Filipinos dependent on agriculture as their primary source of income are threatened by rising temperatures, said Tan. “Increased temperatures will also threaten agriculture in terms of plant viability, yields, fruit maturities, and fruit and/or grain quality not only along the coastal areas, but inland and upland as well.

At the recent international climate change conference in Bali, Indonesia, many countries raised a call for an Adaptation Fund to help areas hard hit by climate change to recover and to protect themselves from further harm.

Another group, Oxfam, explains that “in developing countries, adaptation will cost at least $50 billion each year, and far more if global emissions are not cut rapidly.”

Oxfam says that rich countries, like the US, Germany, Britain and Japan, which are “primarily responsible for creating the problem” must stop harming the environment by fast cutting their greenhouse-gas emissions and by providing finance for adaptation.”

For Oxfam, initial funding that the Philippines may get from the Adaptation Fund should go to making small and remote rural communities, like Makat and Sepaka in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, more adaptive and resilient.

“Adaptation calls for many tens of billions of dollars each year. But rich countries have so far pledged a mere $182 million to international funds for developing-country adaptation–less than half of one per cent of the minimum amount that Oxfam believes is needed overall,” the agency said.

Oxfam said that “an approach rooted in equity and justice suggests that countries that are both responsible for producing excessive emissions, and capable of providing assistance, should bear the costs.”