Youth and environmental groups participated last October 24 in the largest global day of climate action to urge world and local leaders to take fast and effective action on global warming. This global campaign is focusing the attention on the number 350, because according to the latest scientific data, 350 parts per million CO2 (carbon dioxide) is the safe upper limit for the atmosphere. However, the current CO2 concentration is 390 parts per million. It is therefore necessary for the world to cut down on CO2 concentrations soon before we reach the level where the climate crisis will be irreversible.

The human “350” formed in Luneta Park was part of the 2,000 events in more than 140 nations held on or near October 24. Similar actions have been held in the Philippines such as in Benguet, Bohol, Cebu, General Santos, Bulacan, Laguna, National Capital Region and other provinces. These local actions focus primarily in calling on the government to take drastic and real steps and not just superficial solutions and empty rhetoric of climate change actions.

At the global level, the local 350 activities unite with other similarly situated peoples of the world in seeking economic justice and calling for the direct and mandated reduction of global carbon emissions from industrialized countries and their large corporations, as they are the ones responsible for 80 percent of the world’s global carbon emissions. The world’s leaders need to know that people all over the world are urgently and strongly demanding for genuine solutions and concrete actions to address climate change.

There is a need for a legally binding and effective climate treaty when the world’s nations meet on December in Copenhagen.

While it is the industrialized countries that must lower their carbon emissions, it is the job of the national government to prioritize climate change adaptation measures to prepare local communities for the impacts of climate change. The Philippines is among the countries most vulnerable to the impacts of global warming. Majority of the population barely earn enough for their basic needs and lack the socio-economic capacity to cope with the impacts of climate change on communities, such as proven by tragedies caused by Pepeng and Ondoy.

Even with Republic Act 9729, or the Climate Change Act of 2009 that was signed into law last week, more deep and drastic measures are needed if we are to build a climate-resilient Philippines. R.A. 9729 seeks to mainstream climate change issues into the formulation of government policy by setting up a National Framework Strategy and Program on Climate Change. It also creates the Climate Change Commission that will coordinate, monitor and evaluate the government’s programs and actions to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change.

An Inter-Agency Committee on Climate Change was already created as early as 1991. Then a Presidential Task Force on Climate Change was created a couple of years back. While R.A. 9729 may finally settle the confounding issue of which government agency or official is responsible for taking the lead and be accountable for the efforts to address climate change in the Philippines, the urgent problem that must be resolved is much more fundamental.

If we continue to aggressively implement policies such as mining liberalization and energy deregulation, then no amount of institutionalization can improve the climate change resiliency of the Philippines. We will find it very difficult to respond to climate change and its impacts if these environmentally destructive policies continue. Communities dependent on our rich forest, marine, agricultural, and freshwater ecosystems will find it harder to cope with more extreme weather events if our fragile environment is further damaged by wanton mineral, timber and energy resource extraction.

A case in point is the continuing implementation of the Mining Act of 1995. In recent years, many mining projects have directly or indirectly contributed to natural disasters, such as landslides, land subsidence, fish kills, pollution and contamination, and siltation of freshwater bodies. These events have further undermined the capacity of communities to recuperate from extreme weather events that hit the country.

This new Climate Change Commission should also recognize the role and responsibility of G-8 countries and transnational corporations (TNCs) to take on deep and drastic greenhouse gas emission cuts. The burden of large mitigation measures should foremost be carried by rich countries and their transnational companies or TNCs that have emitted the bulk of greenhouse gases contributing to global warming; it should not be passed on to poorer countries such as the Philippines.

The Climate Change Commission is urged to make real the law’s provision on “broader multi-stakeholder participation.” They have to realign their planned adaptation and mitigation strategies to the Filipino people’s long-standing call for genuine land reform and national industrialization, just jobs and wages, and rights. The genuine solution to building a climate-resilient nation lies in a foundation of good governance, national sovereignty, and genuine development for the people.