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Metro Manila is the seventh most vulnerable to
climate change among 132 provinces or districts in Southeast Asia,
according to a new study.
Dr. Herminia Francisco, the
director of the research center Economy and Environment Program for
Southeast Asia, said Friday that the study identifies the regions
most vulnerable to climate change in Southeast Asia. She also is an
author of the study.
“The assessment covers 530
sub-national areas, which consist 341 districts in Indonesia, 19
provinces in Cambodia, 17 provinces in Lao People’s Democratic
Republic, 14 areas in Malaysia, 14 provinces in the Philippines, 14
provinces in Thailand and 53 provinces in Vietnam,” Francisco
explained during the launch of the New Regional Climate Change
Vulnerability Map for Southeast Asia in Makati City.
The other vulnerable provinces in
the country are Cordillera Administrative Region (ranked 27th),
Central Luzon (30th), Cagayan Valley (34th), Bicol (36th), Ilocos
(40th), Southern Tagalog (44th), Eastern Visayas (60th), Northern
Mindanao (74th), Central Visayas (86th), Western Mindanao (87th),
Western Visayas (96th), Southern Mindanao (103th) and Central
Mindanao (105th).
The study evaluates exposure to
climate hazards using information from historical records based on
the assumption that past exposure is the best available proxy for
future climate risks, Francisco told reporters.
She said that the Climatic
Hazards Map is based on five climate related risks— tropical
cyclones, floods, landslides, droughts and sea-level rise.
She added that population density
is used as the proxy for human sensitivity to climate hazard
exposure. “The extant of protected areas is considered the proxy
for the ecological sensitivity of the respective sub-national
areas.”
Other factors
The study also indexes adaptive
capacity as a function of socio-economic factors, technology and
infrastructure. The socio-economic variables comprise the Human
Development Index (income, literacy and life expectancy), poverty
and inequality.
“Based on this mapping
assessment, all the regions of the Philippines, the Mekong River
Delta in Vietnam, almost all the regions of Cambodia, North and East
Lao People’s Democratic Republic, the Bangkok region of Thailand
and West Sumatra, South Sumatra, Western Java and Eastern Java of
Indonesia are among the most vulnerable regions in Southeast Asia”
said Francisco and Arief Yusuf, also an author of the study.
Francisco added that the study
would guide the international research center to help communities
adapt to climate change. The center is currently developing a plan
to help the communities that have been identified to be vulnerable
to climate change.
Information from the study is
“expected to be highly valuable to policy-makers as well as
external donors in resource-allocation decisions on climate-change
initiatives in the region,” she added.
Government agenda
Climate change was on the
government agenda also on Friday.
President Gloria Arroyo said that
she would order households and businesses to segregate their trash
as part of a government campaign aimed at reducing solid waste
output by 50 percent within six months.
President Arroyo issued Executive
Order 774 in December 2008 directing all government agencies,
including local governments, to reduce their solid-waste production
by 50 percent within six months to lessen the country’s greenhouse
emissions.
The President announced her
intention to require households and businesses to segregate their
garbage during a meeting with Environment Secretary Lito Atienza,
Presidential Assistant for Global Warming and Climate Change
Heherson Alvarez, Rep. Roman Romulo of Pasig City and city
officials.
--Ira Karen Apanay And Angelo S. Samonte
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