Climate change a women’s issue.

BY RAPPLER.COM
March 9, 2012

MANILA, Philippines – These women warned of climate change years before Filipinos felt its impact: before the bizarre amounts of rainfall, sinkholes and unpredictable typhoons began. Now they’re calling for immediate action.

“This is the most important issue that we face in our lives,” said Dr Cora Claudio, president of EARTH Institute Asia, Inc, told Rappler’s #talkthursday on March 8. She’s compiling a soon-to-be-published book outlining the hazards ahead. A Stanford PhD and TOWNS (The Outstanding Women in the Nations Service) awardee, she is adamant that climate change can “wipe us out.”

She points to a map of the Philippines with a color-coded guide to different areas. Yellow is relatively safe. The redder it gets, the more vulnerable it becomes. There is no yellow in the Philippines, which is nearly completely red.

“We are very vulnerable,” said Claudio.  “A small degree in rise of temperature in these waters can really affect us disastrously.”

She’s echoed by Antonia Loyzaga, executive director of the Manila Observatory, who joined our conversation from Vancouver, Canada, where she is presenting at a conference on coastal cities and climate change.

“The Philippines ranks #3 in terms of the world’s most at-risk countries, and this has to do with institutional capacity to adapt to the future impact of climate change,” Loyzaga said.

Pushing education and awareness of government institutions has been a longtime goal of Sen Loren Legarda. She is the principal author of the Philippines’ laws on climate change and is one of the principal movers of a campaign to devolve the laws into actionable plans for local governments.

“It’s a survival issue. It’s so unjust that we Filipinos bear the brunt of disasters,” she said, pointing out that the Philippines produces less than 1% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions responsible for the greenhouse effect, which is raising global temperatures, melting the polar icecaps leading to rising ocean levels.

“The US and China combined account for more than 40% of the world’s CO2 emissions, but we Filipinos bear the brunt. Climate change adaptation is important.”

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