Climate change threatens asian RP economies - Loren

Sen. Loren Legarda today warned that unless the Philippines takes action, climate change would severely affect the Philippine economy, creating more poverty and drastically lowering its productivity.

In an address at the Asian Institute of Management here, Loren said that “If the Philippines will do nothing, climate related risks will create a 6 percent decline of our GDP (Gross Domestic Product) annually by 2010.”

Loren, the NP vice presidential candidate, cited a report of the Asian Development Bank, stating that climate change impacts could cost Southeast Asian nations 6.7 percent of their total GDP each year. GDP is the total amount of goods and services produced in a year.

However, the same study found that if the Philippines would invest 0.5% of its GDP by 2020 in climate change adaptation, “we can avert losses of up to 4% of our GDP by 2100 -- clearly a short term investment with a long term eight-fold gain,” said Loren, who is the chair of the Senate Committee on Climate Change and Risk Reduction.

In the face of greater disasters from climate change, Loren stressed that the Climate Change Act recently passed by Congress should be fully and successfully implemented as a “moral imperative and a social responsibility.” Loren was the principal sponsor of the bill in the Senate.

Speaking on the theme, “Capacity Building for Future Southeast Asian Leaders”, Loren pointed out that the Philippines is visited by typhoons about 20 times a year. Also, its location right within the Pacific Ring of Fire where most of the world’s earthquakes and volcanic eruption occur constantly exposes the country to these natural hazards.

She said that in 2008 the world suffered from 321 disasters which killed about a quarter of a million people and affected more than 200 million lives. The total economic cost was a stunning 180 billion US dollars, which is twice the average annual economic losses of the past seven years. The Asia and the Pacific bore the brunt, accounting for more than 80 percent of the global loss of life, said Loren, who is also the UN champion climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction in the Asia-Pacific region.

“As leaders, we need to rethink our approach to pursuing and protecting our development from the regressive impacts of disasters and climate risks. We need to revisit our current frameworks and strategies for socio-economic development (to fully address) the disaster risks which prevail today,” said Loren.

Based on the Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction of the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, Loren said that there are three main reasons for the aggravation of disaster risks caused by climate change -- poor urban governance, vulnerable rural livelihood and ecosystems decline.

Loren said that this “calls for improving urban governance – which involves stopping corruption and enforcing building codes; enhancing rural livelihoods – which involves enhancing agricultural productivity and supporting farmers better; and protecting ecosystems – which involves protecting our forests, cleaning our rivers, and stopping pollution.”

Because of good urban governance, Japan, with approximately 22.5 million people exposed annually to typhoons, compared to 16 million people in the Philippines, suffers much less casualties than the Philippines. The estimated annual death toll in the Philippines is almost 17 times greater than that of Japan. Overall, tropical cyclone mortality risk in low-income countries is approximately 200 times higher than in countries of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

People living in rural areas are more vulnerable to climate change, said Loren. The Philippines is periodically affected by the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon that induces prolonged wet and dry seasons. Climate change, and resulting extreme events will further upset our agriculture production schedules and exacerbate the problem of food security.

Concerning ecosystems, the Millennium Ecosystem Report, released in 2005, found that 60% of ecosystem services – services that nature provides to sustain human life, are declining with some services like fisheries beyond repair, rued Loren. In the Philippines, forests and mangroves are fast disappearing, posing risks of greater floods and landslides.

“Over the last century, the proportion of land area covered by forest in the Philippines has fallen from 22 percent in 1990 to just 19.4 percent in 2000,” said Loren.

To help solve the problem, she cited the work of the Luntiang Pilipinas, an organization that she helped organize several years back and is the Philippine partner of the United Nations Environment Programme in its Billion Tree Campaign Today, it has planted and grown almost two million trees nationwide.

“Now is the time for all of us to unite on all these issues, and to transcend territorial boundaries, political persuasions and institutional affiliations. There is no more appropriate time to show political will, good governance, and exemplary leadership than now,” Loren told the young parliamentarians and policy-makers of Southeast Asia.

Via: http://lorenlegarda.com.ph/news_084_Climate_change_threatens_asian_RP_economies.php

Loren Warns Of Environmental Apocalypse

ILIGAN CITY, Nov. 14 – Sen. Loren Legarda today warned of an environmental apocalypse in the Philippines unless the government and people act determinedly to reverse the current environmental deterioration.

Addressing a conference of the Philippine Society for the Study of Nature in this city, Loren said that “the state of the Philippine environment has deteriorated from a silent spring into the next stage, an apocalyptic one.

“All around us we are witnessing the birth of death, the refusal of life forms to flourish and to thrive, the black curtains that hang over former enclaves of bio-diversity.

She warned that “Only after the last tree has been felled, the last river poisoned, and the last fish caught, will man know that he cannot eat money.

“We have to reverse the onslaught to life, to usher in an environmental springtime, the surge of new life forms, the resurrection of forested mountains, clean air, clear rivers and bountiful seas.”

During the conference, Loren received a “Kalikasan award” from the society for her “valuable efforts” in saving and promoting the environment. For the past many years, Loren had planted over two million trees in the country through her foundation, Luntiang Pilipinas.

The foremost advocate of a green environment in the country, Loren declared that climate change has amplified the threat of catastrophic disasters arising from the steady deterioration of the environment in the Philippines over the past many years.

“We have seen what happened when the floods came. Communities that used to be impervious to floodwaters were inundated. Months after Ondoy and Pepeng, we still see the effects on the lakeshore municipalities of Laguna,” said Loren, who is the UN regional champion for climate change adaptation in Asia-Pacific, and chair of the Senate committee on climate change.
In describing the state of the Philippine environment, Loren pointed out that only 19 percent of the Philippines land area remain forested, while erosion has wiped away 50 percent of the soil’s fertile top layer in just over 10 years.

“Excavation, dredging, and coastal conversion for coastal zone development damage the marine environment, especially to coral reefs, mangroves, and sea-grasses.

“Only about 36% of the country’s river systems are classified as sources of public water supply.

“Agriculture encroachment into forestlands continues to threaten the stability of the whole forest ecosystem including the watershed areas.

“The Philippines has a 2.3% annual population growth rate and the projected total population is expected to reach 91 million. There is rapid urbanization and poor environmental governance and corruption.

“Because of overpopulation, the demand for water also rises. At least 30 million Filipinos have no access to potable water through water supply and distribution operations. Water demand nationwide is expected to grow from 43 million cubic meters per year in 2000 to 88 million cubic meters by 2025.”

While new legislation like the Climate Change Act, which she sponsored, have been passed, said Loren, the efforts to revert the trend would fail without total cooperation between government and people.

She called “for a new development thinking, a more holistic development philosophy. .. founded on sustainable and equitable socio-economic development, ecosystems protection, cultural resilience, and good governance”.

The Philippine Strategic Framework on Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) and the Philippine Climate Change Adaptation Action Agenda would serve as the basis for the program for climate change planning, research and development, extension and monitoring of activities on climate change.

“In line with the framework and action agenda, each local government unit shall formulate its own local climate change action plan. Local government units will be in the frontline in the formulation, planning and implementation of climate change action plans in their respective areas.

“Meanwhile, the national government shall extend technical and financial assistance to local government units for the accomplishment of their climate change action plans. They can also appropriate and use their funds from their Internal Revenue Allotment to implement their local plans."

Loren appeals for displaced persons

Senator Loren B. Legarda has once again called on the national government, various NGOs, and the private sector to extend assistance to hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the country.

Legarda also sought educational, medical and livelihood development assistance for IDPs, particularly those caught between the recent tensions in Mindanao.

She also urged the national government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) to “faithfully observe their truce and to facilitate their peace talks in order to establish permanent peace in Mindanao. We must stop this fighting among brothers and sisters,” she pleaded.

More than 2.5 million people have been displaced by armed conflict in the Philippines since 2000, the vast majority in Mindanao, where 62,000 families (or 370,000 persons) are displaced; most of them in Maguindanao Province. Another 3,800 families are reported to be still displaced in Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat Provinces; and 260 families in Lanao del Norte Province.

The Philippines ranked first in the number of IDPs worldwide by registering 600,000 evacuees in 2008, according to Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), a Geneva-based body monitoring conflict-induced internal displacement. Tension between the MILF and government forces has caused the displacement of more than 950,000 persons since early August, 2008.

Legarda stressed that the Philippines is a signatory to both the 1949 Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and the 1977 Additional Protocol to the [1949] Geneva Conventions on the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts.

DPs are persons or groups who have been forced to leave their homes to avoid the effects of armed conflict, violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters.

Vulnerable groups like children, the elderly or women experience profound psychosocial distress related to displacement, and the removal from sources of income and livelihood may add to physical and psychosocial vulnerability for displaced people. Schooling for children and adolescents may be disrupted.

Source: http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/229072/loren-appeals-displaced-persons

Loren meets Laguna local leaders to find solutions to flooded rice fields

STA CRUZ, LAGUNA - Senator Loren Legarda yesterday met local leaders and government officials here to find solutions to the rice fields being flooded during typhoons.

Rice fields surrounding Laguna de Bay, the largest freshwater lake in the Philippines and the third biggest Southeast Asia, have been flooded for more than a month now since typhoon Ondoy lashed northern and central Luzon.

Loren, chairperson of the Senate Oversight Committee on Climate Change, held a Senate hearing in a flooded rice field in Sitio Butuanan, Sta. Cruz, Laguna. More than a dozen mayors of lakeshore towns as well as other local and national government officials attended the hearing.

The aftermath of Typhoon Ondoy late September caused the waters of the Laguna de Bay to overflow by 10.4 meters leaving 28 towns and cities submerged in flood waters, and damaging thousands of hectares of ricecrops.

Ondoy poured some 3,300 cubic meters of rainwater on Marikina and Antipolo which should have flowed through the Napindan channel to the Pasig River and thence to Manila bay at the rate of 150 cubic meters per second, Loren learned.

The fisherfork group Pamalakaya blamed the Laguna Lake Development Authority (LLDA) for its refusal to open up the Napindan Channel. They claimed that LLDA General Manager Edgardo Manda refused to open the Napindan Channel that should have flushed excess water from the lake.

Manda denied responsibility for the operation of the Napindan Channel and pointed to the Metro Manila Development Authority as the agency responsible.

Loren, however, noted that a study released by the Asian Development Bank in 2004 stated that the Napindan Channel was initially operated by the Department of Public Works and Highways but its operation and control was turned over to the Metro Manila Development Authority in 2003.

The senator proposed that it must be made clear which government agency has jurisdiction over the operation of the Napindan Channel.

Loren also distributed relief goods to poor families in Barangay Gatid, Sta. Cruz, Laguna on the way to the public hearing.. She was assisted by Rep. San Luis of the 4th district of Laguna and by Mayor Ariel Magcalas of Sta. Cruz, Laguna.

After the hearing ended in the afternoon, Loren visited an evacuation site in Pedro Guevarra Memorial National High School, Sta. Cruz where she also distributed relief goods to 200 families.

Source: http://www.lorenlegarda.com.ph/article-1257327925.html

Loren pushes Climate Change Act funding

Senator Loren Legarda pushed yesterday for the inclusion in the 2010 national budget of the much-needed funding for the disaster-risk reduction and climate-change mitigation measures envisioned in the Climate Change Act of 2009.

“A report of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) says that our government agencies have a ‘low capacity to adapt to climate change,’” said Loren.

“That’s the very problem which the Climate Change Act seeks to address, thus the urgency of funding and implementing the salient provisions of this new law whose passage had been hailed by the international community.”

Loren pointed out that since the executive department drafted the proposed budget for next year even before typhoons Ondoy, Pepeng and Santi devastated the country, the funding for disaster-risk reduction and climate-change mitigation may not have been prioritized.

The senator called for a review of the proposed budget, the report for which is already being finalized by the Senate Committee on Finance.

“Powerful typhoons wrought havoc on our country and showed how unprepared we are in dealing with disasters, including in conducting rescue and relief operations. We must resign ourselves to the fact that more powerful calamities are coming our way due to climate change,” said Loren.

“But we must not be caught again with our guards down,” she stressed.

Loren identified the following climate change programs whose funding must be included in next year’s budget:

· Immediate creation of the Climate Change Commission which will coordinate and monitor all of the climate change-related programs and policies of the country;

· Strengthening the capabilities of local government units (LGUs) to deal with disasters by allocating portions of the national budget for the purpose, such as the purchase of pump boats and other rescue equipment;

· Helping the agriculture sector adapt to climate change (e.g. the planting of water-submersible crops and the identification of alternative marketing routes during floods and landslides)

· Ensuring the provision of more efficient health services during disasters, including for the thousands of people who are sheltered in evacuation and relief centers;

· Funding environmental programs and activities like reducing carbon emissions and increasing the country’s forest cover as a way to help in the global effort against climate change

Loren said that on her many visits to relief centers, many evacuees had complained to her of the lack of health services afforded them, making them wonder whether they had survived past calamities only to get sick or, worse, to die in evacuation centers.

“We must think out of the box when it comes to agriculture because the typhoons, floods and other calamities are here to stay. We must pour money to research and development of, say, rice varities that can still be harvested despite being submerged in flood water,” said Loren.

“Our food supply routes must also be given more consideration against being cut so as to avert our experince last month when Pepeng cut the supply of vegetables from Mountain Province.”

Source: http://www.luntiangpilipinas.com.ph/2009/11/loren-pushes-climate-change-act-funding/

Loren, Pia seek budget for climate change

MANILA, Philippines—Senators Loren Legarda and Pia Cayetano Wednesday sought to recast next year’s proposed P1.541-trillion budget to make it more responsive to disaster mitigation and preparedness.

Both senators said deliberations on the General Appropriations Act of 2010, which will resume on Monday, should focus on giving more funds to programs that will help the country cope with the effects of climate change.

The Senate hopes to pass the budget before adjourning for the Christmas break.

Legarda wants funding for the Climate Change Act of 2009, which she authored. Signed into law by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on Oct. 23, the act calls for the creation of a Climate Change Commission. It seeks the purchase of more pump boats and other rescue equipment; development of water-submersible crops; and improvement of local area disaster response operations. It also calls for steps to reduce carbon emissions and increase forest cover as risk reduction measures.

Cayetano, on the other hand, called for budget realignments to finance other pro-environment laws and programs.

Cayetano wants to reinstate the P2-billion slash in the proposed budget of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

In a statement, Cayetano, chair of the Senate committee on social justice, noted that the budget of the DENR had been reduced from P12.9 billion this year to only P10.7 billion in 2010.

The budget cut will affect, among others, existing programs such as watershed rehabilitation, cadastral surveys and biodiversity conservation, she said.

Capital outlays for forest restoration and the acquisition of modern equipment for pollution monitoring and geo-hazard mapping will also be affected, Cayetano said.

Cayetano also wants to see money allocated for the relocation of more than half a million squatters living around waterways in Metro Manila.

She said the government would need P3.2 billion annually in the next 10 years to build 22,689 social housing units to accommodate 545,000 households.

Both Legarda and Cayetano said the recent calamities brought on by Tropical Storm “Ondoy” and Typhoons “Pepeng” and “Santi” should serve as eye openers for the people and the government.

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Source:http://www.inquirer.net/propertyguide/aroundtown/view.php?db=1&article=20091105-234285

Loren Listens to that Still, Small Voice and the Emerging Natural Resource Governance Theory of the Times: The Governance by the Group

“In the midst of all the noise and secret whispers; The interest of a cooperative versus a mayor’s, that of a local party leader needing campaign fund for a political post versus that of a small farmers’ group, in the midst of threats from political interest groups of withdrawal of support if their leaders are not given funds— Whom should I listen to? That still, small voice of God’s spirit should reign supreme. ”

Green vice presidential candidate Loren Legarda declares that she will listen to the voice of the many—in her decision making on crucial matters such as allocation of funds for agriculture and environment. She calls on agricultural cooperatives and other farmers’ associations to prepare themselves as she is bent on passing the National Extension Bill. She said the bill will allot funds for agricultural activities of municipalities through demonstration farms on communal irrigation systems (CIS), high-yielding and climate-change tolerant crop varieties and environmentally safe inputs, use and maintenance of agricultural machineries and equipment as well as teaching the farmers and fisherfolk how to access credit and market their products.

“This is the best way I know how to turn around our agricultural performance. We have to teach our farmers and fisherfolk how to farm and fish in the most productive and sustainable way. And we have to channel our resources to the farm management mechanism that will integrate fragmented landholdings to attain economies of scale in production and marketing. We have to believe that human beings can work through a team or collaborative action. This is why Elinor Ostrom, a political scientist, is now the Nobel Prize winner, because of her belief that those who manage the commons can have reason to work together for the benefit of the majority.”, Loren said.

“Maybe Ostrom’s victory is a sign that we should heed her policy imperatives in managing our natural resources. We should work collaboratively. And we should give incentives for people to work together—I challenge the Cooperative Development Authority to study the work of Elinor Ostrom and know the secret of the most successful irrigation system the country has ever produced—the irrigation of the rice terraces—and other such collaborative systems in natural resource management in the world. Maybe we should also think of collaborative action by families. Plato thought the “kaibigan and kamag-anak” system is the root of all evil so he built his imaginary state on the foundation of communal governance of the republic among the guardians who do not know their children. The Chinese thought that was unnatural and built their economy on filial piety. The Chinese is now an economic giant. The Filipinos love their families, that is natural, therefore we should not fight it. And like the Chinese, we are Asians, we are not the individualistic Westerners in whom Adam Smith built his theory of individualism in the 1800s”, Loren theorized.

Source: http://www.lorenlegarda.com.ph/

Loren calls for climate change sensitive 2010 budget

As Vice Chair of the Committee on Finance and as Chair of the Committee on Climate Change, Sen. Loren Legarda vows to make sure that the budget for fiscal year 2010 will give utmost priority to addressing the issues of climate change and disaster risk reduction.

“The 1.541-trillion budget for next year was formulated by the Executive Department before the super typhoons hit our country, killed hundreds of our people, destroyed millions worth of properties and infrastructure, and devastated our people’s main sources of livelihood,” Legarda said.

In the President’s budget message, priorities were given to infrastructure, agriculture, education, health, poverty reduction, and good governance. “This is the first time that the Executive Department has given priority to environment and climate change in its budget preparations. But we must make sure that funds for these priority concerns are properly utilized and disbursed.”

“Now that the Senate Committee on Finance is finalizing its committee report on the general appropriations bill, we must re-evaluate and recast government priorities so that our agencies and local government units will be better equipped and our people will be better prepared for impending typhoons and calamities that may once again strike our country.”

First and foremost, the 2010 GAA must incorporate funding for the implementation of the Climate

hange Act which was signed into law on October 23, 2009 long after the President’s National Expenditure Program was submitted to Congress. Loren, principal author and sponsor of Republic Act 9729, pushes for the full implementation and funding of the landmark legislation. The new law mandates the development of a framework strategy and local action plans on climate change.

The Climate Change Act provides for the creation of the Commission on Climate Change that will be the sole policy-making body of the government tasked to coordinate, monitor and evaluate the programs and action plans of the government relating to climate change

“We should protect our agricultural and fishery sector by first providing for the identification of the Strategic Agriculture and Fisheries Development Zones or SAFDZs that would delineate the biophysical properties of agri and fisheries areas including climate change adaptabilities of crops, poultry and livestock. The zones will also be the physical planning base for agri and fisheries programs and should be guarded against conversion, destructive activities like excessive quarrying and mining, forest fires, overfishing and other illegal activities in coastal areas. Second , we should enable and empower local government units to determine and prepare for their own disaster mitigation through strong counterparting of funds for agricultural and fisheries activities by correcting the inequity in salaries of local extension workers and devolving the wherewithals of extension that have been kept by the national government since the passage of the Local Government Code. But to strengthen this budgetary provision, we should pass the National Extension Bill before the passage of the GAA. Third, we should allow the farmers to produce the country’s buffer stock—especially in times of calamities—and lessen dependence on imported food to enable them to determine and produce for their—and the country’s— needs as we enter the liberalization regime in ASEAN. , Fourth, we should provide for the National Agriculture and Fisheries Education System—to ensure that the curriculum in all ladders of education strategically incorporate climate change in lifelong learning. Fifth, we should ensure that the farm-to-market roads are strategically networked in production and marketing routes and are quality-controlled to last typhoons and floods through the preparation of an Agriculture and Fisheries Infrastructure Plan. Sixth, we should identify the Basic Needs Communities in agricultural and fisheries areas to focus on the distinct basic needs intervention for the impoverished producers of our food whether in times of calamities or in between harvests. And seventh, we should ensure that the food our people eat are safe at all times by providing for a strengthened food-safety regulations in the Department of Agriculture (DA). And seventh, we should ensure that the 2010 budget should implement all the provisions of the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA) through an adequate monitoring budget. Included in the monitoring is putting in place and implementing a planning-programming-budgeting system for AFMA which I—as chair of the Congressional Oversight Committee on Agriculture and Fisheries— have already asked the DA to follow.

“We should also provide more efficient health services for our people, particularly Hospitals and health facilities that are Safe from Disasters because these are frontline facilities when floods, hurricanes, cyclones, and earthquakes strike. We have learned from bitter experiences in the past that many are adversely impacted because safety measures in hospitals were not integrated in their design, construction and functionality. Provisions for medicines and vaccines should also be allocated for the potential outbreak of diseases like leptospirosis borne by typhoons.”

The 2010 GAA should likewise provide for the implementation of environment protection programs that will help our local communities prevent, prepare for and minimize the potential risks they will have to suffer from the same severe weather patterns that we are experiencing now. Loren is keen on finding a budget for green jobs and resilient livelihoods to be able to offer diversified income opportunities to the most vulnerable populations to climate change in the rural areas.

Specifically, Loren wants to develop rural livelihoods through agro-forestry. There is a way to improve the livelihoods of our people in the countryside while at the same time protecting the environment and adapting to climate change.

According to Loren, “unutilized and marginal lands can be planted with trees, such as rubber trees, which can be a source of income for Filipinos. ”

“If there’s one important lesson that we must learn from the super typhoons that ravaged not only our countryside, but Metro Manila as well, it is that the government, both at the national and local levels, must draw up preventive measures so that our people and our communities will remain safe and protected.”

“The 2010 budget must not be maintenance budget. Waking up from the country’s vulnerability to disasters and climate change, next year’s budget must be instrumental in financing our climate change work to save lives and livelihoods. The 2010 budget will reveal if our leaders and decision-makers in the government have learned to finally mainstream climate change in the budgeting process. ”

Source:

http://lorenlegarda.com.ph/

http://balita.ph/2009/11/05/lawmaker-supports-move-to-realign-2010-budget-to-fund-climate-change-programs/

Good Governance Vital to Climate Change Adaptation

Sen. Loren Legarda, chair of the Senate committee on climate change adaptation, yesterday stressed the need for good governance for communities to meet the challenges of climate change and reduce disaster casualties and damage.

“Development cannot be focused only on economic gains without the accompanying responsibility of good governance. Development should not create risks for our people and our economy. We need to ensure the resilience of our development investments,” said Loren.

In a “Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2009: Executive Brief”, Loren said, “The world as a whole must act immediately to seize and reduce disaster risks. For the global picture has been grim. The world in the year 2008 alone saw 321 disasters which killed about a quarter of a million people and affected more than 200 million lives.

“The total economic cost was a stunning 180 billion US dollars, which is twice the average annual economic losses of the past seven years. And the region of the Asia and the Pacific has borne much of the brunt, accounting for more than 80 percent of the global loss of life.

“About 70 to 80 per cent of disasters have been climate-related. And yet, given the gloomy scenario of climate change, more disasters are expected to happen. Indeed, climate change and disaster risks have become one of the greatest challenges to human development the world faces today.”

Based on the recently released Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction, Loren stated, disaster risks will only be reduced if countries successfully address the three underlying drivers of risk: poor urban governance, ecosystem decline, and vulnerable rural livelihoods.

“If these drivers are not addressed, climate change will lead to dramatic increases in disaster risk and associated poverty outcomes in developing countries,” Loren warned. She cited the stagger ravages of typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng in Luzon to illustrate her warning.

Explaining further, Loren said that improving urban governance involves stopping corruption and enforcing building codes, among others; protecting ecosystems which involves protecting forests, cleaning rivers, and stopping pollution, among others; and enhancing rural livelihoods means improving agricultural productivity and supporting farmers better.

For good governance, she cited Japan were 22.5 million people are exposed annually to typhoons, compared to 16 million people in the Philippines. However, the estimated annual death toll in the Philippines is almost 17 times greater than that of Japan. Overall, tropical cyclone mortality risk in low-income countries is approximately 200 times higher than in countries of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), for similar numbers exposed.

“Although we tend to focus only on the big disasters … the report has highlighted that it is the smaller disasters – the ones that kill less than 10 people and destroy less than 10 houses – which we should be especially wary about. This kind of disasters is on the rise – turbocharged by climate change. They diminish our capital, especially for the poor – human, economic, social and environmental capital – making us less resilient and unable to resist disasters and any crisis a typical household may face, be it disease, loss of jobs or livelihoods,” Loren said.

“Poor rural livelihoods, dependent on rain-fed agriculture and on a single main harvest for annual food and income, are highly vulnerable to weather fluctuations and hazards, which can lead to crop or livestock loss. Poor and indebted households have little or no surplus capacity to absorb these losses and to recover,” she declared.

On ecosystems, she said, over the last century, the proportion of land area covered by forest in the Philippines has fallen from 22 percent in 1990 to just 19.4 percent in 2000. As recorded, large area of forest lands were already converted to tree plantation, mining and marginal upland agriculture which gave a 1.4 per cent average deforestation rate from 1990 to 2000, the highest among Asian countries.