QUEZON CITY—Greenpeace Philippines today renewed its call for the national government and local government units to adopt and implement disaster risk reduction strategies centered on climate action.
The call came ahead of the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) on Oct. 13, and just days after the United Nations’ Human Rights Council passed a resolution declaring the right to a safe, clean, healthy, and sustainable environment as a human right. The Council also voted for the creation of a UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Climate Change [1].
Greenpeace Campaigner Virginia Benosa-Llorin said the call is made more urgent by the onslaught of Typhoon Maring, which heavily affects the agriculture sector and communities in flood- and landslide-prone areas in Northern Luzon.
“The onslaught of Typhoon Maring, although expected, still resulted in loss of lives and livelihoods. This tells us there is an urgent need to ramp up DRR strategies particularly in this era of climate crisis,” Greenpeace Philippines Campaigner Virginia Benosa-Llorin said. “These strategies must include upholding people’s right to a healthy environment as a way to mitigate disaster risks and enabling small communities to cope with climate impacts. A long-term coherent plan will also secure a safe, clean, healthy, and sustainable environment for the current and future generations.”
Greenpeace has long been calling on the government to chart out a coherent strategy from local to national levels to address the climate crisis. The environmental organization states that the strategy should mainstream climate action in all policies, plans, and projects, including in city planning, infrastructure projects, permits for large-scale industrial activities, and fisheries and agricultural policies.
Aside from disaster response, the organization is also calling on the government to strengthen efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions by cancelling all coal projects in the pipeline and speeding up the shift to renewable energy, call on developed countries to raise their nationally determined contribution targets [2], and hold fossil fuel companies accountable for their responsibility on the climate crisis [3].
Last year, Greenpeace also called for the declaration of a national climate emergency amid the worsening loss of life, livelihood, and property during typhoons. The House of Representatives has adopted resolutions declaring a climate emergency, which was seen as a starting point to put climate action and climate justice at the center of governance.
Notes:
[1] The UN’s main human rights body has overwhelmingly voted to recognise the right to a safe, clean, healthy, and sustainable environment as a human right, and to appoint an expert to monitor human rights in the context of the climate emergency.
The human rights council passed the clean-environment resolution, which also calls on countries to boost their abilities to improve the environment, by 43-0 while four member states – China, India, Japan and Russia – abstained.
[2] The recent UNFCCC NDC Synthesis Report shows that the current contributions would warm the planet by 2.7 degrees Celsius—significantly higher than the 1.5-degree Celsius threshold under the Paris Agreement.
[3] Filipinos await the resolution to the world’s first Climate Change and Human Rights Inquiry filed in 2015 at the Commission on Human Rights. More details about the petition here.
Media Contact:
Angeli Cantillana
Communications Campaigner, Greenpeace Southeast Asia-Philippines
[email protected] | +63 998 595 9733