Climate resilience: Beyond response, ‘ayuda’

The Philippines faces about eight disasters annually, and over the last three weeks, we have been overwhelmed by worsening floods and relentless torrential rains.

But since relocating our country to safer parts of the planet is not geographically feasible, we’re stuck with a bad hand of cards from the get-go. As consolation, our country is not alone in this unwanted category of natural-hazard hotspots. Neighboring Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and eastern parts of China are also on the doorstep of typhoons emanating from the Pacific.

Yet they still managed to become economic powerhouses. Why so? Doesn’t their economic resilience call into question the common perception that underdevelopment and the poverty it engenders are tied to how often—and how severe—natural hazards affect developing nations like the Philippines?

But everyone agrees that although we cannot control the weather, we can at least reduce its impact on lives, livelihoods, businesses, and property. And what better way to do so than by reducing, if not eliminating, the constant risks posed by natural hazards (e.g., floodwaters and landslides during the southwest monsoon season)?

Climate governance framework. If we remove graft and corruption from the equation, the two major obstacles to achieving natural-hazard resilience in the Philippines are geography and climate change. To be effective, our response to these natural and man-made hazards must be commensurate with the gravity of the climate crisis, which deepens our collective misery during typhoon season. This calls for a sweeping overhaul of our current climate governance framework, which is disjointed, ad hoc, and largely response-oriented rather than focused on long-term preparedness, planning, and regular assessment.

A responsive climate framework is guided by a robust, science-based, and data-driven policy (and thus adaptive) that is backstopped by a permanent structure (and thus longer-lasting). The latter is adequately empowered by law, funding, and regular staff to plan, oversee, implement, and periodically assess, with the help of local government units, the country’s national disaster risk reduction and management strategies.

Without this new climate governance framework, our response-oriented approach to calamities and the onslaught of natural hazards (response, relief, recovery, and temporary evacuation efforts)—although commendable, as it saves lives and feeds mouths—doesn’t really address the problem. We’re just treating the wounds superficially without addressing the root cause. The main problem is the failure to adapt to living in a country that is the most storm-exposed country on Earth and No. 1 global risk hotspot, mainly due to its high geographic fragmentation and high exposure to weather-related extremes.

Will a new Cabinet-level department, endowed with all the legal, political, and budgetary authority, meet the challenges of this climate crisis?

The quick answer to the need for such a new body has to do with physical geography: the Philippines sits in the northwest Pacific, the most active region for tropical storm formation. In this region of the Pacific Ocean near the equator, warm water fuels storms. With no large landmass to block them first, these storms are driven by powerful winds toward the west (east of the Philippines). As Filipinos, we find ourselves right in the path of newly formed storms, with all their undiminished ferocity felt at landfall.

Disproportionate impacts. The complicated answer lies, for example, in the proven link between climate change and increased rainfall: Climate change increases the frequency and intensity of tropical storms. Its effects disproportionately impact vulnerable communities that are not well positioned to adapt due to low adaptive capacity (rural and the urban poor) and because it exacerbates existing environmental risks (low-lying, flood-prone, and below-sea-level areas in both rural and urban settings).

This is where the proposed Department of Disaster Risk Reduction (DDRR)—or the Department of Disaster Resilience—comes into play. The wisdom of having this proposed body is clear to the House of Representatives, which has repeatedly passed such a measure, only to hit a wall when it reaches the Senate.

Beyond the perceived erosion of local government autonomy, the cost of establishing a DDRR is the primary objection. But cost is relative. If that budgetary expense will finally ensure centralized coordination across the four thematic clusters of the government’s current national risk reduction strategy, then it is well worth the expense.

The proposed department can enhance our climate resilience by becoming the primary agency to address natural hazards, calamities, and disasters, rather than having disaster resilience currently handled by 14 departments. In short, addressing the climate crisis must be carried out daily and consistently by a permanent body, in preparation for incoming hazards, to prevent them from turning into disasters.

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For comments: lim.mike04@gmail.com