IN ORDER to check the continued and worrying rise in the Earth’s temperature, there is the need for a “paradigm shift” in the way people think and behave.
This was the gist of the message that Federico R. Lopez, chairman and CEO of the country’s largest clean energy producer First Gen Corporation (First Gen), at the recent 3rd Philippine Environment Summit (PES) in Cagayan de Oro City, stressing that “We can no longer measure our success purely by bottom line growth and shareholder value.”
“My own measure of success will be judged by how well we can aid the decoupling of GDP growth from carbon emissions,” Lopez said, who is concurrent chairman and CEO of Energy Development Corporation.
Way back in 2016, he declared that the Lopez Group would not invest, build, or develop power plants fueled by coal, whose combustion emits massive amounts of carbon dioxide, one of the heat-trapping greenhouse gases being blamed for adverse global warming and climate change.
He also believes that on top of that, “It will be the role of businesses like ours to go beyond sustainability and into discovering creative new ways to improve and regenerate everything we touch: from our customers to our co-creators (employees, suppliers, contractors etc.), the Earth, communities and our shareholders.”
It can be noted that First Gen’s portfolio of power plants runs on geothermal, hydro, wind and solar, which are renewable energy sources; and natural gas, considered the cleanest form of fossil fuel.
According to Lopez, the continued warming, which is melting away at a faster pace the Earth’s permafrost like the Antarctic, could induce at least a three-foot rise in sea levels.
Citing recent climate studies, he noted that “Many of them (permafrost areas) known to have melted only inches a year are now subject to ‘abrupt thaws’ as rapid as 10 feet in days or weeks.”
He added that “the fact that we are a coastal dwelling and archipelagic nation, the warming Antarctic should worry us even here.”
Lopez, however, sees hope from the situation, noting that “The climate crisis we are facing today is a golden opportunity for humanity to reexamine our way of thinking and begin rewriting the rules of how our world works.”
This is why it is high time we rethink, reimagine, redesign and rebuild how our world works. It’s a paradigm shift like the world has never seen before.
“In short, everything must change. We are living through what will be history’s greatest paradigm shift. We no longer have a choice,” he stressed.
How we get our energy, the design of our cities, buildings and homes; the materials we use; what we eat and how we grow our food; how we handle our waste; how we use and recycle water; our transport systems and what powers them; words like regenerative agriculture, permaculture, the circular economy, cradle to cradle, net positive buildings, the sharing economy.
“We’re all imperfect beings in an imperfect world but it doesn’t mean we don’t try,” Lopez said. (jaypeeyap@ymail.com/PN)
