Urgency for climate adaptation

As the world’s top carbon emitters, China, US, and India, delay slashing carbon emissions, climate damages in the coastal areas of the world continue to soar. A new study [1] shows that sea level rise from global warming is actually much higher than previously thought – by one meter in Southeast Asia. Mitigation (or prevention), mainly by cutting global emissions, is the lasting answer, but meanwhile, low-lying regions like the Philippines islands must invest in adaptation (or coping), to live with the consequences. For that to happen, however, mindsets must change to triage adaptation.

In fact, if people’s and politicians’ priority for building climate resilience can go up several notches, the gains would be enormous. After all, the Philippines is listed [2] at the top of the most at-risk countries for climate change. In the absence of adaptation, there is the potential to lose over 13 percent [3] of GDP by 2040. These dangers refer not only to the impacts of sea level rise, storms and floods, but also health effects and the loss of productivity due to heat extremes. After Vietnam and Thailand, the Philippines is the most vulnerable [4] in ASEAN to the rate of heat mortality.

Preparedness for coping

While natural disasters conjecture images of people’s powerlessness before Mother Nature, climate disasters also invoke the role of systematic response to a human-caused crisis. The Philippines is used to living with calamities. The losses from typhoon Tino or Uwan are headline news; so are reports of vast misuse of flood control funds. It is good that disaster management is in the Filipino DNA. But runaway climate change obliges us to go further – a change in the mindset. From reacting to acts of God, the calculus calls for heading off a human-caused event.

The returns to readiness are large. In a striking example, one among numerous, the difference in the impacts of the 2011 Sendong and 2012 Pablo storms in Mindanao was stark: 650 deaths versus none in Cagayan de Oro. This was not due to storm strength as the maximum wind speed for Sendong was 95 mph, Pablo 175. It was attributed to drastically improved early warning and evacuations during the second episode, following the first which was unexpected for December in Davao.

That said, the motivation for being ready is weak. It could be that preparatory work like running emergency drills that promise future benefits is less eye-catching than the first response or relief that brings immediate gains. Memories are also short, and especially during a lull in catastrophes, the appetite for preparation is low. In these circumstances, there is a big role for awareness-raising on the value of readiness. But crises can be turned into opportunities for building back differently and better with prevention in mind.

Budget for preparedness

Money is tight, and estimated adaption needs outstrip available financing [5]. Spending [6] on climate adaptation has increased notably in the Philippines over the past decade, including in 2026 – for water management, sustainable energy and climate resilient business. This is positive, but the key question is if the increased budget just reflects greater relief needs, or investment in prevention.

The financing also needs to get to the right place at the right time. The country’s fiscal architecture has specificities that aggravate the funding problem. Local government units bear primary responsibility for disaster management, yet four-fifth of their financing relies on national transfers that do not account for their needs for preparedness.

Priority for prevention [7] also requires the ability to look ahead. Appropriation for the disaster fund is determined annually, which makes planning difficult. It might be possible to build in a degree of automaticity but with flexibility in funding based inter alia on the size of the locality, disaster frequency, and use of funds. On flexibility, note that special disaster funds sometimes end up not being fully used, while there are needs elsewhere, because of the uncertainty on the occurrence of calamities.

In building predictability with flexibility, external financing, as the Philippines has been attracting, could help, provided it contributes to greater fiscal transparency and stability. The long-term structure of financing from ADB, IMF, World Bank, suit the needs of investment in prevention, including capacity development. The World Bank has provided potentially fit-for-purpose CAT-DDOs (Catastrophic Deferred Drawdown). Such financing is even more valuable when it also brings independent mechanisms to check how well it is being used and what can be learnt.

The advent of climate change has raised the stakes for investing in prevention. With the certainty of rising climate catastrophes, there is a premium for investing in prevention. Local budget rules merit reform for predictability and flexibility, while external funding can potentially bring the gains of long-term financing as well as checks and balances.

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Vinod Thomas is former senior vice president at the World Bank and director general at ADB, both in independent evaluation.