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THE Philippines is among the countries facing great
risk if the trend in global warming, caused by carbon dioxide
emission, is not reversed, an international conservation group warns
at a news conference in Makati recently.
“The Philippines is extremely
vulnerable to the ravages of climate change. Food and fresh water
shortages, receding coastlines and an increase in political and
economic turmoil is the bleak picture that climate change paints for
the country,” warned by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)
during the launch of the Manila edition of the Climate Savers
program.
Started by the WWF in Europe in
2000, the Climate Savers is a global campaign which aims to enlist
businesses and corporations to cut their carbon dioxide emissions by
at least 10 million tons annually by 2010 and promote cost-efficient
energy saving measures..
WWF-Philippines climate change
manager, Rean Tirol, said that 43 million Filipinos living along or
near the coastlines is at risk from rising sea levels if the present
trend of global warming is not adequately addressed adding that most
of these people like their counterparts in neighboring countries are
poor and depend on the marine ecosystem as their prime source of
food and livelihood.
Tirol added that the world has
already warmed by over 0.7 degree Celsius and is locked into at
least another 0.5 degree Celsius warming from proindustrial era.
He said if this continues the
corresponding rise in sea level could inundate half of metropolitan
Manila’s coastal municipality of Navotas and even wipe out
low-lying island of the archipelago.
The IPCC has warned that 640
million people, 13 million of whom are Filipinos who are living in
coastal areas 10 meters above sea level, face the greatest risk from
abrupt climate change.
The report identified the
countries with the largest number of people living within the area
as China (143,888,000), India (63,188,000), Bangladesh (62,520,000),
Vietnam (43,000,000), Indonesia (41,600,000), Japan (30,477,000),
United States (22,800,000), Thailand (16,400,000) and the
Philippines with 13,329,000.
 --James
Konstantin Galvez
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