‘A big blow to Yolanda victims and survivors’
Filipino climate justice activists join mass walk-out at UN climate change talks
November 22, 2013

WARSAW (Nov 21): Members of the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice has joined a mass walk-
out at UN Climate Change conference in Warsaw, Poland “to protest against the failure of the
talks to deliver climate justice.”

Hundreds of representatives of civil society organisations and social movements around the world
streamed out of the National Stadium here on the penultimate day of the two-week long round of
negotiations.

“Everyone here was saying they sympathise with Filipinos affected by typhoon Yolanda, and yet
some parties—specifically the rich, developed countries and dirty industries—are refusing to
increase their ambition on emissions cuts and refusing to provide compensation for those of us
affected by climate change,” Gerry Arances, National Coordinator of PMCJ said.

“This is a slap in the face of people who are already suffering from climate change,” said
Arances.

“On the one hand they’re giving us humanitarian aid for Typhoon Yolanda, on the other hand
they’re ratcheting up emissions and refusing to hand over new, adequate and predictable funding
for the loss and damages caused by their historic emissions of greenhouse gases,” said Val Vibal,
Spokesperson of Aniban ng Managgagawa sa Agrikultura (AMA) and a Coordinating Committee members
of PMCJ.

“Their one hand is reaching out to us and giving us relief goods; their other hand is effectively
pushing us into the path of more and stronger typhoons,” Arances said.

“As the Philippines’ climate change commissioner Naderev Sano said, ‘This climate crisis is
madness.’ And yet, they’re refusing to stop this madness.”

The walk-out followed an earlier walk-out by developing countries from a negotiating session
after developed countries continued to block the establishment of an international mechanism for
providing funds to poorer countries bearing “loss and damages” from climate change

Filipinos led by PMCJ here in the Philippines launched several activities, including fasting
across the country and actions in front of embassies of the US, Canada and Australia, to press
for adequate climate actions by the developed countries to avert catastrophic climate change.

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