Philippines joins calls to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines, sitting as president of the climate vulnerable forum (CVF), has joined more than 100 countries in calling for worldwide support to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The campaign, called the #1o5c, seeks a goal more ambitious than the current international goal to hold off increase in temperatures below two degrees.

“We need to limit warming to a strict minimum to safeguard communities and the world. Less than one degree of warming has already triggered scores of dangerous and unmanageable impacts,” Climate Change Commission (CCC) member Emmanuel de Guzman said yesterday.

“Raising ambition is a question of survival. It’s also feasible and an opportunity for communities to thrive. We hope this campaign will help to convince other countries to call for a sensible decision on the temperature goal at the Paris climate change conference,” he added.

According to the campaign, failure to hold global warming below 1.5 degrees carries significant risks of causing the disappearance of low-lying island nations like Kiribati, Maldives or Tuvalu, and coastal regions, such as the Mekong Delta, Florida and Southern Bangladesh.

“Populations and communities everywhere face increased risks of sickness, injury and fatality as the wellbeing and survival of people are put at growing peril,” the campaign said.

“Higher temperature levels also increase the risks of unforeseen or disruptive changes and climatic feedback that could carry global warming inadvertently further,” it said.

The campaign was launched on the sidelines of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations in Bonn, the last preparatory meeting before the Conference of Parties in Paris this December.

More than 100 countries, mostly from Africa, signed the petition supporting the more ambitious goal. Hundreds of civil society groups also joined the call.

Saleemul Huq, director of the International Center for Climate Change and Development, said the number of supporters is significant in the UN climate talks.

“Paris provides a rare opportunity to increase our collective ambition to combat climate change including by strengthening the 2°C goal that the vulnerable countries rightly view as totally inadequate. And support for 1.5°C is steadily growing – this campaign will only add to that momentum,” Huq, who also sits as chair of the CVF advisory group, added.

CVF, currently headed by the Philippines, is a partnership of 20 countries highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

The group tied up with CARE International for the #1o5c campaign.

“It is crucial that the 1.5°C goal and the means to make it happen are part of the new UN climate agreement due to be signed in Paris,” Sven Harmeling, CARE International’s climate change advocacy coordinator, said.

“We must come together to rally all countries to support this goal. CARE International is already seeing how the poorest and most vulnerable communities are being hit the hardest by increasingly severe climate change impacts,” he said.

Supporters can sign the petition at http://www.1o5c.org/.