Our Country Is One of The Top Ten Countries Most Vulnerable To Climate Change

Climate change is on top of discussions once more. Tyhoon Karding (international name Noru) has just devastated many of our provinces. Residential areas and farms were damaged.

Aerial inspection of Bulacan, Nueva Ecija and Tarlac which were affected by the super typhoon Karding. September 26, 2022. (KJ Rosale/PPA POOL)

From The Manila Times

It’s not only in the recent times that the Philippines is visited by typhoons. But the typhoons are gettimg stronger. It used to be that we feared storm signal number 3, now we get signal number 4, even 5. Flooding brought by typhoons occurs more often.

I leave to the experts the explanations on why some countries are more vulnerable than others.

Two factors are our landform and our geographical location . We are an archipelago located beside the North West Pacific basin which is the most active basin on earth for storms to form. 

There are studies which have investigated the different social, economic and environmental factors that cause certain countries to be at a greater risk of climate change as compared to others. It has been determined that developed nations have higher carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions and therefore contribute more to climate change. On the other hand, they are often less vulnerable to the consequences of climate change as compared to developing nations that may not be contributing much to the problem . This is true for our country, the Philippines. Being a developing country, we are one of the top 10 countries most affected by climate change, yet we are not one of the countries with the most carbon emission. But there are developed countries which are also vulnerable to climate change, Japan and Germany have been cited too. We are all affected.

We cannot change our geographic location and landform. Our economic development relies mostly on the plans and action of our national leaders.

But there’s one area where we all can help in our individual capacity – the mitigation of climate change. I reiterate the actions we can take from my post World Environment Day 2021.

1. Growing Trees – if we have a large lot, we can do this. Otherwise let’s participate in tree planting activities . We can develop awareness through our blogs or social media accounts.
2. Greening Cities – we can do this in our own yards or if we don’t have one we can have plants in pots.
3. Rewilding gardens – we’re so used to manicured lawns, it’s time to reconsider making it more sustainable and less costly to maintain
4. Changing diets- let’s buy locally as much as possible so there would be less energy consumption to transport food. Let’s refrain from buying processed food, cooking from fresh ingredients which we can do with care , within is healthier. There will be less wastes from packaging.
5. Cleaning up rivers and coasts – we can start by avoiding waste and being mindful of waste disposal lest they end up in our bodies of water.

As bloggers, we can drum up interest on the environment or maintain awareness at the least.

Let me share with you my other posts about the environment:

• The Original Skyscrapers
• A Year of Frugal Living
• Mindful Discarding
• Mother Earth, How Do I Care For Thee
• Easy Composting

Advertisement