BY PRINCE GOLEZ
Manila Reporter
MANILA – Filipinos have already started to feel the effects of global warming. What should we do to reduce our vulnerability to climate change?
Yesterday, President Benigno Aquino III said dangerous climate change impacts may only be contained if adaptation strategies are mainstreamed into local and national policies.
“The government has included climate change adaptation and mitigation, as well as disaster risk reduction and management, among the major considerations for future development,” Aquino said.
The President was in Bicol to keynote the UNTWO ASEAN International Conference on Tourism and Climate Change.
His administration, he said, is planning to incorporate sustainable mitigation plan into the country’s tourism development.
“As long as tourism can be pursued in a sustainable manner, it is certainly one of the best sectors to focus on and one of the shortest and most efficient paths to inclusive growth,” Aquino added.
While the country has the best beaches and dive spots in the world, Aquino lamented that these are vulnerable to climate risk in the form of loss of biodiversity or coastal erosion.
“Climate change is real. It is a threat not simply to our industries or to our economies; it is a grave threat to all our peoples. The sooner we move on a more united front – and the sooner we agree on a systematic, concerted effort to address the problem – the sooner we can make a more profound impact on changing the effects of climate change,” he stressed.
A long-range planning is needed to address the problems posed by climate change, Aquino said.
The government has introduced incentives to private sector investing in renewable energy projects, according to him./PN
