Climate change mitigation or adaptation?
“We are the first generation to be able to end poverty and the last generation that can take steps to avoid the worst impact of climate change. Future generation will judge us harshly if we fail to uphold our moral and historical responsibilities.” - Ban Ki Moon, Former UN Secretary General
Climate change is a worldwide concern considering the impact of global warming on the environment and on people. To help combat the impact of climate change, 195 countries, including the Philippines, decided to take common climate action by signing the Paris agreement on climate change on December 12, 2015.
Six years earlier, Republic Act ( RA) 9729 known as the Climate Change Act of 2009 was enacted. This policy of the State aims to afford full protection and the advancement of the right of the people to a healthful ecology in accord with the rhythm and harmony of nature. In this light, the State has adopted the Philippine Agenda 21 framework which espouses sustainable development, to fulfil human needs while maintaining the quality of the natural environment for current and future generations.
As defined by the United Nations Environment Programme ( UNEP)/ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “Climate Mitigation refers to efforts to reduce or prevent emission of greenhouse gases (GHG). Climate Adaptation, on the other hand, is defined as an adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities.”
Climate change mitigation pertains to actions that limit the magnitude or rate of long-term climate change. It generally involves reductions in human emissions of greenhouse gases and increasing the capacity of carbon sinks through reforestation. In layman’s term, climate mitigation is any action taken to eliminate or reduce the longterm risk and hazards of climate change to human life and property.
Climate change adaptation reduces the vulnerability of humans or natural systems to the impacts of climate related risks by maintaining or increasing adaptive capacity and resilience. It refers to the ability of a system (or us humans in this respect) to adjust to climate change (including the variability and extreme weather) with moderate potential damage or coping with the consequences. There are various types of adaptation that are distinguishable such as anticipatory and reactive, private and public and autonomous and planned adaptation.
In comparison, the more mitigation there is, the less impacts there will be for humans to adapt or adjust to. Conversely, the greater the degree of preparatory adaptation, the less may be the impacts associated in any given degree of climate change. We have the proactive options in facing climate change but we must also plan ahead how to deal with the consequences of global warming.
At present there is a huge financing demand for the implementation of climate mitigation and climate adaptation projects for the local government units and industries’ environmental management and compliance with various environmental laws. Specifically there are seven major environmental laws, namely: Clean Air Act of 1999 (RA 8749), Clean Water Act of 2004 (RA 9275), Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 (RA 9003), Toxic Substances and Hazardous and Nuclear Waste Control Act of 1990 ( RA 6969), Biofuels Act of 2006 (RA 9637), Renewable Energy Act of 2008 (RA 9513), and Climate Change
Act of 2009 ( RA 9729). Based on data from the National Solid Waste Management Commission, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, and Department of Energy, among others, the funding requirement is more than P600 billion.
Programs must be put in place to address these two approaches. To illustrate, energy projects like underground cabling to protect utilities from extreme weather and design of wind turbine structures or solar panels to withstand extreme weather events are examples of climate adaptation initiatives. Mitigation projects will include renewable energy like biomass using forestry waste, solar, hydro, wind and geothermal, as well as energy efficiency measures. Rehabilitation of water infrastructure using climate projections and other relevant variability is classified under adaptation. Mitigation includes non- revenue water reductions for efficiency through water leak detection systems. The list is quite long that for the Development Bank of the Philippines it was necessary to identify initiatives that can impact various sectors — infrastructure, energy, water, hospital/ health, education, social services, agribusiness and small and medium enterprises.
For economic development to be sustainable, the country must engage in both approaches to achieve true resilience. These strategies are equally important for the social and ecological systems to absorb disturbances and withstand stress and change. The programs are not cheap but we should consider these as important investments for our country’s future generation.