Long fight against global warming

The world will just have to weather out a bit longer this environmental phenomenon of hotter summers, harsher winters, super typhoons, and frequent earthquakes.

Even with last week’s celebration of Earth Day and the formal signing of the Paris climate agreement (forged in December last year) at the UN headquarters in New York, bigger strides will be needed in the future to actually see any significant improvements in the environment within the next decade.

For starters, there is the big question of whether the US will honor its “voluntary” commitments in the Paris agreement should Donald Trump and the Republicans win in the coming elections.

China and India too, which accounts for a huge percentage of harmful gas emissions into the atmosphere, will need to work out with their respective governments a more definitive plan in line with what they had voluntarily agreed on in Paris.

The same holds true for the European Union, although it represents only less than 10 percent of the global carbon dioxide emissions. Getting back to the respective governments of the 28 member-countries and agreeing on just how much carbon each will commit to cut will already be a formidable and time-consuming mission.

Disaster management

Meanwhile, the 15-strong contingent of small island states (the Philippines is not part of this) that have the least carbon emissions, but are most affected by the climatic change, is pushing for the promulgation of the agreement at the soonest.

While there will be funds available to these countries – and extended to others similarly affected like the Philippines – for disaster risk management including early warning systems, disaster preparedness, and relief, the need for the world to reduce greenhouse gases quickly was urged before their islands all disappear.

These island nations have demonstrated the alarming effect of global warming on their shorelines with the world’s ice caps continuing to melt, bringing sea levels higher.

2030 deadline

The Paris agreement looks at 2030 as the deadline to limiting the world’s rise in average temperature to “well below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels” and pursuing efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius.”

Many of the 171 countries — including China — that attended the UN signing ceremonies have reiterated their pledges made during the year end COP21 meeting in Paris, i.e., to facilitate the shift from fossil fuel-based energy to renewables.

This broadly means more incentives and subsidies will be forthcoming to encourage the development of alternative renewable forms of energy such as solar, hydro, geothermal, biomass and wind to fuel automobiles, heating, cooling, and even manufacturing.

Philippine commitment

Hopefully, the next decade — depending on the results of the US elections — will hopefully see a world with less carbon dioxide emissions. This is already happening in the US where trillions of dollars are being spent to support renewables development and improve energy efficiency.

The Philippines, being a signatory to the Paris agreement, has also been supporting renewables by “subsidizing” its generation price to be competitive to traditional oil and coal.

Unlike the US, it does not foresee any problems with the coming change in national leadership. While there continues to be a debate among global scientists and businessmen about the reality of global warming, the Philippines is only too well aware of how valid this threat is.

Reader on ‘silver market’

In one of our columns, we featured the views of a few retirees on why they would choose a country other than where they were born in to spend the rest of their senior years in.

Last week, we received a letter from a reader. Here is what Frank Weathers has to say about the Philippines. Please read on.

“It was with interest that I read your article “Going for Phl’s Silver Market” in The Philippine STAR of April 19.

“And it is not just personal interest as I am one of the prospective Silver Market candidates, but also because it highlights again the major problems in the economic development of this beautiful country.

“There are two major problems that the Philippines struggle with: one is the everywhere-present corruption, and the second one is a totally inefficient and slow bureaucracy system.

“Neither one of the problems is being solved although the current administration attempts to correct the second problem. But as long as many members in the Senate are motivated by greed and not by justice, the improvements will be slow.

“And the Silver Market will develop slowly.

“The fear that many foreigners (including me) have is that property rights are not protected, being issued a proper title can take years (Why, in this computerized world?), and promises and contracts on paper are not honored without the risk of penalty because the justice system in the Philippines is even slower than the Registry of Deeds.

Advantages

“The Philippines has such an advantage over other countries like Cambodia, Columbia, Honduras and many others because the government language is English. So all documentation is in English and can be understood more clearly.

“The other advantage of the Philippines is that crime rates are reasonably low. And the country is environmentally fairly clean.

“It would be an ideal retirement place for many from Canada, Australia, the USA, and Europe ... if the two major problems will ever be reduced.

“Of course, it is not very helpful that your visa extension program is time-consuming and costly. I have lived on and off in this great country for the last two years and extending my visa is a headache every month or every two months—another pain-in-the-butt issue that could be easily simplified if anyone in government was interested.”

Facebook and Twitter

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Should you wish to share any insights, write me at Link Edge, 25th Floor, 139 Corporate Center, Valero Street, Salcedo Village, 1227 Makati City. Or e-mail me at [email protected]. For a compilation of previous articles, visit www.BizlinksPhilippines.net.