BANGKOK - The Philippines urged rich nations at U.N. climate talks on Wednesday to toughen emissions cuts, saying the typhoon that hit the country this week was a taste of future effects of climate change on poor nations.
Typhoon Ketsana (RP local name: Ondoy) killed 246 people and triggered widespread flooding in the capital Manila.
The storm, which has also killed 32 in Vietnam, dumped a month's worth of rain in 24 hours in Manila, overwhelming rescue services.
Residents have been scathing in their criticism of the government's disaster response in the crowded city of 15 million where sewers are notoriously blocked by rubbish.
The storm has become a focus of marathon climate talks in Bangkok this week, with developing nations and green groups saying it is an example of the type of climate disaster poor nations could face in a warmer world.
"Ketsana is clearly a manifestation of the consequences of global inaction in addressing the immediate impacts of creeping climate change," chief Philippine climate negotiator Heherson Alvarez told reporters.
He said rich nations must act urgently "to moderate these storms and spare the whole world from the impoverishing and devasting impacts of climate change".
Delegates from about 180 countries are meeting in the Thai capital trying to narrow differences on emissions reduction targets, climate finance and transfer of clean-energy technology before a December deadline to seal a tougher pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol.
"Unless we have deep and early cuts -- we have asked for cuts of 30 to 40 percent -- it will continue to deliver these destructive typhoons," he said.
The U.N. climate panel says rich nations need to cut their emissions by 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 to help limit the rise in planet-warming carbon dioxide levels. Pledges by most rich nations to date fall below that recommendation.
"Terrible warning"
Developing countries are demanding rich nations pay for steps to help them adapt to predicted rising seas, increases in the intensity of storms, greater extremes of floods and droughts and changing river flows from melting glaciers.
They say rich nations are responsible for the bulk of mankind's greenhouse gas pollution in the atmosphere over the past two centuries and largely to blame for climate change impacts to date.
"What happened in the Philippines is a terrible warning of what we might be experiencing in the future if action is not taken immediately," said Kim Carstensen, head of conservation group WWF's global climate initiative.
"The tragic events in the Philippines are a reminder for all negotiators here in Bangkok," he added.
Alvarez said the government was caught off-guard.
"It was an unusual event because the velocity of the storm was fairly mild compared to the aggressive storms that we have been experiencing."
About 20 typhoons hit the Philippines annually and Alvarez said wind speeds have increased over the past 30 years.
"It's been ranging initially about 30 years ago, 100 kilometre-per-hour storms. It's been growing in aggressiveness from 100 to 150 and of late, the storms have been close to 200 kilometre per hour."
Despite the relatively mild velocity of Ketsana it carried heavy rains. Experts say more intense rains are an expected effect of global warming.
as of 09/30/2009 2:18 PM
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Nature change
Don't cannibalize our mountains. 1980'S when you to to marikina you can smell the breeze of the nature. after 90's Mountains surrounding marikina ;antipolo,montalban and q.c have been developed to become a subdivision and sports area.
Now after the flood what we can see is mud of soils that came from the mountains. Conserve our environment. THe golden rule, what you do to other , the other will do the same to you.
GENERAL SANTOS CITY , Philippines — Only one-eighth of the earth’s surface will remain as dry land by 2020, unless governments worldwide succeeded in bringing down greenhouse gas emissions to 2 degrees Celsius by 2017, an environment science professor at the University of the Philippines in Los Baños said.
At present, one-fourth of the earth’s surface is land, while three-fourths is water but because of the worsening global warming brought about by the unabated gas emissions into the atmosphere, both the North and South Poles would melt and turn vast areas into a water world.
“With the world population projected to balloon from five to seven billion by then, there would be huge shortfalls in production, and supply may not be able to cope with ever increasing demand,” said Dr. Samuel Martin in a position paper, “The Consequences of Global Warming and Climate Change,” delivered on the second day of the Philippine Councilors League’ national conference at the Lagao Gymnasium last week.
Later, Martin told a press forum that scientists and educators attending the recently concluded Copenhagen Protocol on Global Warming and Climate Change were one in saying that at the rate toxic gases, particularly carbon dioxide, were being emitted into the atmosphere, a global meltdown at 4 degrees Celsius was imminent, and steps must be taken so that by 2020, the point of no return, global temperature was held down at 2 degrees Celsius.
He said the conference was supposed to have come up with a concerted scheme last month yet, but because of what he described as the apparent pussy-footing by the key players in attendance, the protocol came up short, and the deadline was moved to 2012.
“Sad to say, our world leaders could not seem to summon the political will to tackle the issue head-on, their equivocation driven no doubt by the reality that the twin problems of global warming and climate change are largely dictated by market forces of trade globalization,” he said.
Martin said local legislators could play a key role in addressing the problem at hand by coming up with concrete measures designed to protect the environment from crass commercialism and profit-driven endeavors disguised as earnest attempts at finding alternative sources of energy in the face of an impending power shortage.
“Coal fuel is one. No matter how you try to justify its use, it is inherently bad for the environment and must not be allowed,” he said.
For a regular coal-fired power plant, he said, millions of trees will be needed to serve as buffer to absorb carbon dioxide and prevent it from getting into the atmosphere where it is trapped, forming a warm blanket over the earth’s atmosphere.
“But this is next to impossible, for most of our forests are gone forever to logging, legal and illegal, and any claims to the contrary are all hot air and deception,” he added.
