Rama off to Bangkok for forum

CEBU – Acting Mayor Michael Rama will be in Thailand for the next four days for the “Better Air Quality Workshop 2008” wherein delegates are expected to sign the Kyoto Declaration to promote Environmentally Sustainable Transport in cities.

The Kyoto Protocol is a protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, an international environmental treaty produced during the UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992.

The treaty is intended to achieve “stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.”

Rama will be representing Mayor Tomas Osmeña to whom the invitation to the workshop was originally extended. Rama will join at least 1,000 other delegates from 35 countries.

“I was instructed by Mayor Tom to go, so I will go,” Rama said.

Osmeña flew back to the United States Sunday for his chemotherapy to treat Stage 3 cancer in his urinary bladder. He first flew to the US last month for treatment but returned to Cebu last Thursday to deliver his State of the City Address over the weekend.

In Houston, Texas, Osmeña will undergo chemotherapy twice a week for eight weeks and will rest for about six weeks more before his bladder will be removed.

With Rama flying to Bangkok, first councilor Hilario Davide III will act as mayor for four days while second councilor Nestor Archival will serve as acting vice mayor.

According to the website of Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities, the EST Forum provides a strategic/ knowledge platform for sharing experiences and disseminating among Asian countries best practices, policy instruments, tools, technologies, in relation to various aspects of EST.

CAI-Asia promotes and demonstrates innovative ways to improve the air quality of Asian cities through partnerships and sharing experiences.

The Regional EST Forum is a joint initiative of the United Nations Center for Regional Development and the Ministry of Environment of the Government of Japan.

The policy dialogue, CAI-Asia added, incorporated city-specific elements under the overall framework of the Regional EST Forum, and brought about greater coordination and collaboration among national and local efforts to realize the goal of sustainability in the transport sector in the Asian region.

The declaration will be instrumental in motivating both participating and non-participating Asian cities to realize EST in its truest sense to promote environment- and people-friendly transport in Asia. —Mitchelle L. Palaubsanon/JMO (THE FREEMAN)