Long road to climate justice

YouTube video blogger Joseph Pasalo recently documented the flooded state of the islands of Batasan and Ubay in the municipality of Tubigan in Bohol. Watching the 17-minute video showing the islands’ residents coping with seawater intruding into their homes daily during high tides makes one realize that stories of islands going underwater are no exaggeration.

Closer to Metro Manila, multi-awarded photo journalist James Whitlow Delano documented life in the islands of Salambao and Binuangan in Obando, Bulacan where community residents are also threatened daily by high tides.

It’s easy to jump to the conclusion that these islands’ current predicaments are directly attributable to climate change, and therefore eligible to compensation from a “loss and damage” fund that developed nations represented in this year’s UN Climate Change Conference or COP27 had finally agreed on.

Unfortunately, difficult as it was for rich nations to agree on the idea of setting up a loss and damage fund, fleshing out the all-important details in coming months, i.e., how much money is to be pooled and who will be eligible to draw from it will be much tougher.

In the cases of the four Philippine islands mentioned earlier, eligibility to monetary assistance for damages to their homes and livelihoods will be subjected to intense scrutiny.

Contentious issue

Providing compensation for damages brought about by harsher climates continues to be a contentious issue. Rich countries that are being held responsible for the continuing rise in the world’s temperature still choose to be skeptical on the cause of extreme climate changes that the world is experiencing. Record droughts and flooding, storms more vicious and with increasing regularity, and extreme heat or cold temperatures may be difficult to ignore, but attributing these to global warming is still something that is very much open to debate.

Expect the mechanics of this loss and damage fund to go through a wringer, and in the end, not able to provide help to those who matter. For example, residents of Salambao and Binuangan in Bulacan have to prove that rising ocean levels caused by melting snowcaps have contributed to their lands being submerged in water, however, over-extraction of groundwater from deep wells starting in 2003, is reason for many parts of Bulacan to have sunk by 1.5 and 2.5 inches.

Batasan and Ubay, as with two other islands in Bohol, have sunk by more than a meter in 2013 after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake hit the province. Can one blame an earthquake to be caused by global warming?

While there is immutable evidence that demonstrates global sea levels have been rising by 0.11 inches yearly, what happened in the four islands mentioned above show that this is not enough reason for the affected communities to receive aid from a loss and damage fund. That being the case, let’s not get our hopes up anytime soon.

Adaptation fund

To some of those who attended COP27, an adaptation fund would be a more practical alternative to the loss and damage fund. This skips the thorny debate of culpability for global warming, and is more open to raising funds to help distressed communities.

As one delegate had said, communities like those in Pakistan that suffered flooding need all the help they can get after losing their homes and livelihoods. Just like Filipino farmers whose lands are hit by strong typhoons, money is needed to help them survive the days until they are able to fend for themselves again.

While there were clear commitments in 2009 by developed countries to contribute to a fund of $100 billion every year by 2020 for climate adaptation and mitigation, the amount has never been fully delivered. Still, there were funds coming in that could be used.

With worsening climates in recent years, the clamor to double adaptation finance from 2019 levels by 2025 has been proposed. During last year’s COP, this doubling of funds was supported and passed, and while there is a possibility that the full amount will not be delivered again, more money will still be possible.

The UN has issued several reports that demonstrated progress in disbursing the funds for adaptation, and how this has helped beneficiary communities. The Philippines, in fact, has been able to draw from this fund to help identified communities adapt to climate impact without having to go through a debate on whether the damage was caused by global warming.

This focus on adaptation over mitigation recognizes the increasing number of destructions caused by worsening climates. Adaptation answers the need to come up with measures to cope with disasters and the building of more resilient communities. On the other hand, mitigation is more susceptible to greenwashing debates, where big countries and companies support a gradual phasing out of fossil fuel use rather that an immediate and total shift to renewable energies.

With more funds available for adaptation strategies, developing countries must push forward with the view that these funds should be available not as loans but as grants so as not to raise distressed countries’ debt burdens.

Doubling mitigation efforts

The debate on mitigation must continue, and the goal to keep global warming to below 1.5°C must be kept alive. Countries like the US, China, and India, which are responsible for the highest greenhouse gas emissions in the world, must do more.

After wasting seven years doing little to bring down greenhouse gas emissions, the world must work double time during the next seven years to keep global temperatures from exceeding 1.5°C, and hopefully prevent worse catastrophes.

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