Urban resiliency key in fight vs climate change – Cimatu
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) on Tuesday urged other Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member-states to focus on building sustainable cities and urban areas that could play a vital role in the fight against climate change.
DENR Secretary Roy Cimatu, in his message read by DENR Undersecretary for Policy, Planning and International Affairs Jonas Leones during the ASEAN Forum on Urban Resilience to Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management Strategies held in Laoag City, said achieving sustainable urbanization will be key to adapting to and mitigating climate change impacts.
Cimatu noted that in the past 10 years, ASEAN countries became highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change as they are now experiencing more frequent extreme weather events, such as floods, droughts, heatwaves and rising sea levels.
As early as 2009, he said the World Bank warned that the Philippines topped the list of countries most vulnerable to storms, with Vietnam the second most vulnerable to rising sea levels, and Thailand and Vietnam among those most threatened by flooding.
Cimatu pointed out that pursuing urban resiliency has become an urgent agenda for all nation as the world’s urban population is expected to balloon to 2.5 billion by 2050.
"Urban areas, where half of our population lives, drive global warming and consequently climate change," he said.
"The effects of our decisions and actions as part of an urban ecosystem transcend the boundaries of space, politics, ideology, economics, and even social strata," he added.
Cimatu said the three-day regional forum, organized by the DENR-Ecosystems Research and Development Bureau, serves an important venue for discussing plans for attaining, building and reinforcing urban resiliency.
"We are here today because we all take urban resiliency seriously. We realize the need to holistically discuss the issues and challenges that make our cities vulnerable. And the time is now," he said.
He appealed to everyone — from the scientific community and urban planners to manufacturers and consumers — to enhance their participation toward solutions so that ASEAN policy and decision makers and resource managers can work together to achieve sustainable urbanization in the region.