Inside WWF Philippines

Yesterday was the Ayala Land Recharge day where all the employees allocated their volunteer services to a selection of 5 non-profit organizations. WWF was the environment group. WWF Marketing and Climate Change teams conducted a climate change workshop to over 100 Ayala Land employees.

We at WWF figured, Ayala Land – land development – climate change - critical. The morning was an onslaught of information on climate change, the rise and fall of ancient civilizations and the factors that lead to decline, predominantly environmental damage and climate change. Then we went into 2 hours of what caused global warming, why, who, what was the situation in the Philippines, global and local impacts.

The afternoon was dedicated to a carbon footprinting exercise. As expected, the average Ayala Land employee emitted huge amounts of carbon, way over the average Filipino’s 0.9 tonnes a year. Again as expected, the majority of emissions came from transportation, about 3 times the amount of carbon than other sources such as electricity, waste, etc.

Your average Ayala Land employee pretty much represents your average Metro-Manila employee who commutes an average of 1 hour a day to get to work and another hour to go home. As the largest land developer in the Philippines, and the company that built Makati, obviously there was something terribly twisted in the thinking, or rather, the planning to have engendered a Metro-Manila lifestyle that produced a standard of 2 hours commute a day. But hey, like all good Filipinos, they were simply miming the American development models where owning a car is a given, and we all know what this lifestyle contributes to climate not to mention the blind eye it turns to those who can’t own a car, like maybe 40% of the population.

The last exercise of the day was group case studies of 3 development projects. The groups had to identify how the projects were contributing to dangerous climate change and recommend mitigation and adaptation measures. Obviously the group got it and then maybe they didn’t get it. On the problem of clearing the trees off land as is the practice upon ground breaking, the solution was replanting. This was a retro-fit, after-the-fact solution but no one talked about not cutting them down at all but landscaping development around the existing vegetation. But then the mindset is still, “hey, we control nature and bend it to follow our plan”. There were some surprises, such as leaving more unpaved spaces good for photosynthetic ceiling and of course the obvious ones such as, eco-design for static ventilation and natural light. They were a sharp, young group and we only had 3 hours of brainwash so give it time to sink in, deepen and flourish in innovative ideas. Seeds were planted – maybe we’ll see changing landscapes, less pollution, cleaner lifestyles, maybe hope.

When you deal with climate change issues almost everyday, it is difficult to consider the marketability of An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore’s personal journey and commitment to inform the world of a warming planet and the consequences of inaction. At WWF, climate change is top-of-mind in every conversation, be it on cetaceans or corporations. Climate change is a familiar enemy and yet the familiar evidential patterns that track a warming planet, the probable consequences illustrated in the movie, strike you with the same intensity as first contact with the subject.

Yesterday the Nido Petroleum company presented to WWF their project to drill for oil in Northwest Palawan, 51 kilometers off the coast of Busuanga. They were in the process of obtaining clearance from the DENR to begin drilling operations and had conducted the necessary consultations with the local government, people’s organizations and needed consultation with an environmental group, WWF, because the project is within the Sulu Suluwesi ecoregion. So they presented their gem of a project, taking pictures of the consultation as proof that it had happened.

The IHT front page is an article on coal and China that illustrates the predicament the world is in today. China is the center of global climate change discussions. There is no sustainable world without a sustainable China with over a 5th of the world’s population. Energy generation in China has to keep up with the rapid 10% per annum economic growth and right now one of the solutions is to build a new coal plant every 7 to 10 days. To watch China develop today is like seeing the Industrial Revolution that kicked off the northern world economies over 100 years unfold over a span of 10 years, and unfortunately, replaying the same dangerous phases that, on hindsight, destroyed much of the world environment and contributed wholesale to climate change. Today, China burns more coal than the US, Europe and the rest of the world.

My current read is ‘Collapse’ by Jared Diamond, a fascinating account of ancient civilizations that failed. Diamond has a 5-point structure on the factors that contributed to the collapse of past civilizations. He examines the Polynesian settlements of Easter Island, Pitcairn, and Henderson, then on to more ancient civilizations like the Anasazi in New Mexico and of course, the Maya. I’m at this point in the book and frankly, who needs fiction...

A Climate Change Forum was held at the Mandarin Hotel yesterday to discuss the impacts of climate change on the Philippines and courses of action. Although climate change threatens disaster, there are solutions but we have to act now. The solutions present a whole range of opportunities for this country. The cacophony of ideas was overwhelming but a unanimous call for immediate action was the order of the day.

by Lory Tan

I just returned from the second in a series of meetings of WWF’s Energy Task Force. Aside from looking backward at the energy decisions made over the last century, we looked forward 50 years. Many global energy concerns were taken up. Among them, we spoke at length of the characteristics of a new energy paradigm for the planet.

I spoke for the developing world, arguing for the inclusion of approaches that had particular relevance for us.

My post for today is simply to bring attention to two significant additions to the list on the left column. One is a paper on Bretton Woods by my favorite economist, Sixto K. Roxas, which you can download, and the other is a link to a video of my favorite ex-politician, Al Gore and his talk to the Stanford Graduate School students. Taking different approaches, they essentially tell us that we have to start ‘thinking’ about the way we think, calling for nothing less than a shift in worldview. Both are great thinkers, a Filipino from the Southeast and an American from the North. It’s so cool to get a global view from both sides of the equator.

Finally the Bush administration, which is not on my list of reliable leadership, admits that climate change is real, happening now and Katrina was probably one of the first signs of change. But, predictably, they are opting for voluntary emissions reduction, afraid to threaten their economic hegemony. While the UK and Europe, and perhaps even China and India shift to renewables, the US will fall behind, still trying to curb their addiction to fossil fuels. Their resistance to shifting now may well be their achilles' heel because in the future, focus and funds will increasingly be towards putting out the ‘fires’ from climate upheaval, immensely straining resources all around.

My reading for Labor Day weekend was the Weather Makers by Tim Flannery. This book is definitely a must read if you are at all interested in climate change, which we all should be because it will affect all our lives, and definitely the lives of everyone we know today who are under 50 years old.