Youth climate activists call for urgent climate action that protects people, planet
MANILA, Philippines — Devastating impacts of a warming planet laid out in a leaked draft report by a United Nations body reinforce the call for urgent plans and actions from national and world leaders, Filipino climate activists said.
The draft report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects how species extinction, ecosystem collapse, more widespread disease, unlivable heat, rising seas, and other crushing impacts of climate change are accelerating.
“This is not a world we want to inherit. Our leaders, who probably won’t experience any of this, are committing their children and grandchildren to a terrible, possibly unlivable future,” said Xian Guevarra, national coordinator of Youth Advocates for Climate Action Philippines.
“To think that, before my generation turns 40 or 50 years old, we could already be living in a country experiencing constant deadly heat waves, food and water shortages, and cities like Manila and Cebu could be partially underwater due to rising sea levels,” he added.
As an archipelagic nation in the Pacific, the Philippines is among the countries most impacted by climate-related catastrophes. It is particularly exposed to threats of tropical cyclones, averaging 20 annually.
The climate crisis is exacerbating the Philippines' exposure to more frequent and extreme weather changes, rising temperatures, heavier rainfall, and sea level rise.
YACAP called for more immediate plans and actions that protect both the people and the planet.
“What we’re experiencing now with the climate crisis is here to stay. We need empowering, contextualized climate education and strong adaptation plans defined by the most impacted communities themselves,” said Mitzi Jonelle Tan, YACAP international spokesperson.
“The industrialized countries that have led us to this crisis have a climate debt to pay for their historical and current carbon emissions. A stop to emissions and an immediate and just transition to green industries is not just their responsibility, it’s reparation for injustices,” she added.
Agence France Presse reported last week the findings in the draft IPCC report, which is not scheduled for public release until February next year. IPCC released a statement saying it “does not comment on the contents of draft reports while work is still ongoing.”
Under the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, global warming must be limited well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels while pursuing efforts for a tougher ceiling of 1.5°C. — with a report from Agence France-Presse
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