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Government is acting

It makes a lot of difference if government is sleeping. In the article below, the case with the Philippines is that government is on the move, and that’s a fine thing for the country. If anything good comes out of this, the leaders do deserve a little credit.

Arroyo signs landmark climate change measureGMANews.TV – Friday, October 23

In the aftermath of devastating back-to-back storms, President Arroyo on Friday signed into law the “Climate Change Act of 2009″ that calls for a national strategy for dealing with what many scientists regard as the gravest threat to the planet. The signing came amid the country’s preparations for Typhoon Ramil, which is expected to hit northern Luzon over the weekend.

President Arroyo signed Republic Act 9729, the consolidated version of Senate Bill No. 2583 and House Bill No. 5982, in simple ceremonies at the Rizal Hall of Malacañang with several legislators and local officials in attendance.Under the new law, an autonomous policy-making body attached to the Office of the President to be called the Climate Change Commission will be created to coordinate the programs of the government and represent the country in international climate change conferences. It will be chaired by the President, who shall appoint three commissioners.

The signing of the law comes two months before a landmark conference in Copenhagen in December, when global leaders are expected to approve a new climate change treaty that will chart the world’s carbon emissions future after the first commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

The new treaty will be voted upon by world leaders at the 15th Conference of Parties (COP-15) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Denmark.Among the officials who witnessed the signing were principal author Sen. Loren Legarda, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, and Majority Floor Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri. From the House of Representatives came Deputy speakers Amelita Villarosa and Eric Singson, Senior Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II and Senior Minority Leader Roilo Golez.

In an interview, Legarda said the Climate Change Act is a long-awaited measure that will consolidate government efforts in dealing with the impact of extreme weather, including the unusual rainfall and flooding from Tropical Storm Ondoy that ravaged parts of metropolitan Manila and Typhoon Pepeng that devastated Northern Luzon.

She said the recent cyclones show that the climate change issue is no longer limited to environmentalist advocates, as it affects everyone. Unless the country acts immediately, Filipinos would find their livelihood and even their own lives at risk from the changing climate, Legarda said.

National action plan

The law aims to mainstream mitigation and adaptation measures in government policies from the national to the barangay level through a “National Framework Strategy and Program on Climate Change” that is expected to be crafted within six months. This includes the development of measures to protect vulnerable communities from the impact of climate change.

The Commission shall have an Advisory Board composed of selected Cabinet members and representatives from the academe, business, non-government organizations (NGOs), and the presidents of the League of Provinces, League of Cities, League of Municipalities, and the Liga ng mga Barangay.

A panel of technical experts comprised of experts on climate change and disaster risk reduction will also provide advice and risk assessments to the commission.Also present in the signing were Cabinet officials led by Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, Environment Secretary Lito Atienza and Presidential Adviser on Global Warming and Climate Change Heherson Alvarez; and local government units led by Antique Governor Sally Perez.

Under the law, a National Climate Change Action Plan will be crafted to provide the government with a roadmap for mitigation, with emphasis on the voluntary reduction of local carbon emissions and adaptation measures, Alvarez said.

Antonio La Viña, dean of the Ateneo School of Government and adviser to the Philippine delegation in the UNFCCC, welcomed the new law but said it would be dependent on the interest of the country’s chief executive in the climate change issue.

“It’s a step in the right direction,” he said, noting that the government set-up in dealing with the climate debate so far has not worked well.However, La Viña is still pushing for the creation of a department level agency instead of a commission to spearhead the country’s climate change adaptation efforts.

He said there are too many commissions under the Office of the President competing for the chief executive’s attention. “In the medium term a department would be better,” he said.

Reducing risks from disasters

Along with the action plan, the government will also come up with a Disaster Risk Reduction policy which the UN had prescribed as a holistic approach in the areas of humanitarian relief, development aid, risk management, climate change, and emergency preparedness.

Zubiri said that aside from the Climate Change Act, legislators are expecting another important and related bill – the Disaster Risk Management bill – to be passed soon.

He said the bill, which is still pending in the House, aims to help prepare the country for typhoons similar to Ondoy and Pepeng as well as other calamities. - with a report from Pia Faustino, GMANews.TV

Brief Event Description

Culminating Event of the 2010 Hazard Mapping and Environment Summit in Manila. The activity is a Music and Cultural Festival intended to raise funds for the victims of man-made and natural calamities such as Philippine Typhoons, IDPs in hostilities in various areas in the Philippines, victims of the tsunami in the ASEAN-Pacific Regions, and to support the Private Sector Led database development and the creation of a full-functional integrated geographic information system that will include the ASEAN Flood GIS, Forest GIS, Water GIS, Volcanoes GIS, Earthquake GIS, Typhoon GIS, Political conflicts and hostilities GIS.

NEW ANNUAL ECO CRISIS CONFERENCE

We encourage the Philippine Government, Asian Governments, combines like the United Nations, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, to support this milestone activity from the remainder of 2009 up to 2010.

ANNUAL ECOLOGY CRISIS CONFERENCE

The Resource Recovery Movement will hold the first 2010 Hazards Mapping and Environment Summit (Eco 2010 Summit) in Manila, Philippines. This is ultimately borne about by the tremendous changing of the Philippine landscape and those of other countries in the Pacific Rim in the last few decades. All efforts towards risk mapping in relation to calamities and disasters in the past should now take into consideration the great shifts and transformations in land mass, the enormous amount of rainfall brought about by Climate Change and many new factors that were heretofore not factored into national and sub-national planning by governments as well as even by business establishments and non-government organizations.

Click this link to sign up: Join Resource Recovery Movement!

The 2010 Hazard Mapping and Environmental Summit (HMES) is intended to develop better approaches to mapping risks and dangers to communities in the Philippines and other countries with tropical climates. It takes a cue from the recent experience in China, Indonesia and the Philippines, notwithstanding the previous experiences in Thailand, Bangladesh, Pakistan where scores of people died due to unforeseen occurrences during the incidence of a natural disaster: earthquake, typhoon, tsunami and other calamities. The databasing, mapping and full coordination of efforts towards use and sharing of a full function GIS on hazards, volcanoes, water, flood, forests in the Philippines and Asia, vulnerability areas, liquefaction potential, crisis and hot spots is long due because of the long-running phenomenon of Climate Change in the planet. This is also significant in that the Philippines, among other countries, lies in the Pacific Rim of Fire where a large number of earthquake faults lie.

The most important value of the conference is to determine the plan and the cost of implementing such a plan to make the Philippines and other participating nations safer from increasingly hazardous calamities.

Note: The organizers reserve the right to make minor changes in the Conference details prior to the actual Event.

HMES 2010 Organizers