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BY ERICK SAN JUAN
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‘Yolanda’ debacle
THE THIRD anniversary of super typhoon “Yolanda” was marred with the shortcomings of the previous administration. Funds were allegedly missing. The victims of the calamity are still suffering from poor living conditions.
Organizations under the auspices of the United Nations kept saying that our country is one of the vulnerable nations and will greatly suffer due to climate change. May it be dry or wet season, we experience great losses in lives and properties due to climate change (a.k.a. global warming).
This could be the reason why former president Fidel Ramos got pissed off when President Rody Duterte reiterated his stand against the signing of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. It was in July that he hinted in his speech that he will not honor the climate change pact on carbon emission.
But just this Nov. 7 during a speech at the oath-taking of the new officers of the National Press Club in Malacañang, the President announced that he will now back the Paris Agreement on Climate Change after a near-unanimous approval by his Cabinet, and he will be signing the historic pact.
According to the 2016 Climate Change Vulnerability Index, the Philippines is one of the 15 countries most vulnerable to climate change. But what is the Paris Agreement all about?
According to Tony La Viña (former dean of the Ateneo School of Government) @rappler.com, “The Paris Agreement is not just a carbon emissions agreement but a comprehensive sustainable development agreement. It is an adaptation, loss and damage, finance, technology, and capacity building agreement – all of which are essential to our survival. We cannot cherry-pick but accept the whole package. But we can do so in our own terms.
“To opt out of the Paris Agreement is to allow developed countries to escape from their responsibility to compensate us for causing climate change. The Paris Agreement is the only process where we can get developed countries to be accountable for their emissions through a loss-and-damage mechanism and through provisions that require them as a matter of climate justice to provide support to us so we can adapt to and mitigate climate change. Indeed, the Paris Agreement has good provisions on finance, technology transfer, and capacity-building. Our delegation worked hard in Paris to get the best text possible for these provisions.
“The Paris Agreement does not impose emissions reduction limitations on us. We can determine our own targets based on our development needs. We can adopt targets but we can make that conditional on support by developed countries. That’s what we did in Paris – we did offer 70percent but we said we will do it only if support was given.
If the Duterte administration wishes, it can lower the number to maybe 30 to 40percent and perhaps commit to do 10 to 15percentof that as unconditional since we are already doing many things on our own. Such a decision would be credible and acceptable.
“The Paris Agreement is a good document whose consequences will last generations. While this legally binding agreement in itself is not enough to solve the climate crisis, it is as strong, ambitious, and as equitable as it can be for an agreement that required consensus by 195 countries—a positive beginning to a long and hard journey towards climate justice.”
Yes, there are concerted efforts of countries around the world to address the so-called threats of global warming/climate change but as what we have been saying for several years now in our radio program and in our writings, there is one element this body is missing or has refused to acknowledge – the man-made cause of climate change, s weather manipulation or weather engineering.
Strange behavior of weather systems and abnormal movements of typhoons that we have never before witnessed are the signatures of someone or something really manipulating Mother Nature and cause great harm to humankind.
Could it be that this evil science of manipulating weather is compelling various nations to sign a pact to address the man-made disaster? In the various UN-sponsored gatherings of leaders of various nations, there is always opposition to such move because it will only hamper the growth and development of countries, especially the developing ones.
Who may have thought that such weather engineering can only be seen in sci-fi movies?/PN
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