Studies find Philippines a disaster waiting to happen

MANILA, Philippines—As close to 200 countries began Monday a two-week meeting in Cancun, Mexico, to try to forge an agreement to curb climate change, several international agencies warned that the Philippines remained a disaster waiting to happen—with Metro Manila possibly going under water after just a heavy downpour.

As in earlier meetings in Copenhagen, Denmark, and Bali, Indonesia, a legally binding international agreement is not expected in Cancun to put a cap on carbon emissions scientists believe to be causing global warming and worsening natural disasters. But at least a preliminary road map is expected to be drawn up to replace the aging Kyoto agreement expiring in 2012.

As 15,000 government delegates, environmentalists, business leaders and journalists gathered in the Mexican resort, the Philippine government appeared to be moving heaven and earth to avert more catastrophes from impending natural disasters in a desperate race against time in a dangerously warming planet.

On the eve of the Cancun conference, President Benigno Aquino III declared a Global Warming and Climate Change Consciousness Week, calling on the people to adjust their lifestyles to prevent further degrading the environment as temperatures climb, ice melts, seas rise and the climate that nurtured man shifts in unpredictable ways.

Mr. Aquino also ordered the scrapping of the P18.7-billion Laguna Lake rehabilitation project in order to include additional features to remove centuries-old silt, save the watershed, install global positioning mapping, relocate illegal settlers, and provide livelihood programs for displaced fishermen.

The President’s order came not a day too soon: Some 70,000 fishermen live in 170 coastal villages around the lake area covering 90,000 hectares.

A triple-agency international study has found Metro Manila, together with three other Asian coastal megacities, in grave danger of killer floods that could devastate them anytime now unless steps are taken fast. An average of 20 typhoons strikes the country yearly.

The government-run Laguna Lake Development Authority (LLDA) issued a similar warning after Typhoon “Ondoy” (international name: Ketsana) unleashed killer floods a year ago that kept parts of Metro Manila underwater for many months.

The state-owned water regulatory agency, Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS), has reported that many more parts of Metro Manila have slid below sea level because of sinking water tables. It said massive siltation had also greatly reduced the Pasig River’s capacity to drain floodwaters into Manila Bay, threatening to swamp the capital after even just a heavy thunderstorm.

An Asian-focused US think tank, Pacific Strategies and Assessments, recently accused the Aquino administration of underestimating the threat of natural disasters on the “most vulnerable” part of the country—Metro Manila—and overestimating government preparedness to cope with natural disasters like typhoons, floods and earthquakes in many parts of the country.

A series of international conferences over the past two years—in Bali, Indonesia, in 2008, Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2009, and now in Cancun—is expected to produce scant progress in reaching an enforceable agreement to cut pollution by the world’s leading industrial economies, notably China, India, the European Community, and the United States.

Silver lining

Happily, the gathering storm clouds have produced a silver lining: Filipino scientists are close to finding a breakthrough solution to environmental problems caused by fossil fuel. They are growing a species of algae suitable to large-scale biofuel production, an alternative energy source discussed in a new documentary film.

The film, “Cool It,” is heating up the global warming controversy first raised by the documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” and a disturbing UN report warning of imminent environmental disasters caused by climate change.

The earlier documentary won an Academy Award that catapulted former US Vice President Al Gore to the world stage and a new career as environmentalist. For their work in raising global-warming awareness, Gore shared a Nobel Peace Prize with the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Skeptical

“Cool It” is making enough waves to rock the boat carrying Gore’s brand of environmental activists. The film questions the scientific bases of the climate change effects predicted by Gore and some 2,500 scientists comprising the UN panel.

“Cool It” is based on lectures and a book of the same title by Bjorn Lomborg, controversial author of “The Skeptical Environmentalist.” Lomborg founded the Copenhagen Consensus Center, a think tank that puts forward the views of the world’s leading economists on major global problems.

The award-winning filmmaker, Ondi Timoner, traveled the warming globe together with Lomborg to document climate change and find the most practical solutions to environmental problems.

Scare tactics

Lomborg says that Gore “oversold the message” of climate change and that Gore’s film was designed to scare people “witless.” He says it “works very well as a scary way to get everyone’s attention” but is an “incredibly poor way to make good decisions” about climate solutions.

Lomborg does not deny climate change but questions the scientific bases of the UN panel’s predicted environmental consequences. He also contests the cost effectiveness of proposed ways to fight global warming.

“There’s a lot of amazing ideas,” says Lomborg. “Solar and wind, of course, but we also look at growing your own oil fields through algae in the ocean, making artificial photosynthesis …”

Lomborg says current efforts to cut carbon emissions would reduce global temperatures only minimally, while much lower amounts spent for research could radically cut the costs of improving existing alternative energy sources and developing new ones.

Breakthrough

In one such effort, Philippine scientists have identified a species of algae capable of producing commercial quantities of oil for fuel.

Teresita Perez, chair of Ateneo de Manila University’s Department of Environmental Science, has isolated species of algae that can yield 40 to 50 percent oil when grown in a medium containing nutrients that increase production.

The Ateneo scientists are looking at growing algae without using chemical fertilizers. They are experimenting with chicken manure, hog waste, and even fresh water lakes as alternative growth media.

Zero emissions

To preserve the environment, the researchers are testing a closed carbon-loop method to grow the algae, meaning the carbon dioxide by-product of aerobic decomposition is fed back to enrich the growth medium, thus avoiding releasing CO2 into the atmosphere.

After the oil is extracted, the algae become a rich source of protein and carbohydrates for feeding fish and livestock, completing the cycle.

An advantage of producing fuel oil from algae is that the process does not displace croplands that are better used for growing food like corn, soybean and sugar cane, thus keeping prices stable. Algae are 150 times more efficient than soybean in using arable land.

Boeing, the airplane manufacturer, estimates that growing enough soybeans to supply the fuel needs of the aviation industry for a year would require fields as big as Europe, but algae would need only 30,500 square kilometers of ponds, the size of Belgium.

Disaster-prone

The World Bank joint study released recently found Metro Manila—together with Asia’s biggest megacities, Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh City—in grave danger of natural calamities triggered by climate change.

The country is already suffering the quadruple-whammy effects of global warming identified by UN climate scientists: rising sea levels, floods triggered by killer typhoons, dwindling drinking water supplies induced by drought, and shrinking food crops from parched agricultural lands.

A one-meter rise in sea level resulting from melting polar ice caps could put 64 of the country’s 81 provinces—a full 80 percent—in harm’s way, according to the environmental group Greenpeace.

That’s equivalent to 700 million square meters of coastal lands covering half of the country’s 1,610 municipalities, where half of the population depends on seafood as the main source of protein.

In 2006 alone, 3 million Filipinos were directly affected by natural disasters, according to the nongovernment Citizen Disaster Response Center. The number is expected to rise with rising temperatures and sea levels.

Waiting to happen

A World Bank study done after Typhoons “Ondoy” and “Pepeng” (Parma) struck last year, titled “Post Disaster Needs Assessment,” recommended “immediate changes in land-use planning, housing, water management, and environmental protection.”

Another World Bank study, done with the Asian Development Bank and the Japan International Cooperation Agency, titled “Climate Risks and Adaptation in Asian Coastal Megacities,” warned of climate-induced disasters in Metro Manila unless major steps were taken fast.

The study recommended constructing the Marikina Dam and embankments in the Pasig-Marikina river basin, and improving two major pumping stations serving Metro Manila, located beside the Manggahan River and in the Camanava area (Caloocan, Malabon, Navotas and Valenzuela).

Manila sinking

After Ondoy struck, the LLDA disclosed that the lake’s capacity to hold floodwaters had been cut drastically by silt dumped by 24 river tributaries from denuded watersheds.

The MWSS has disclosed that many more sections of Metro Manila have slid several feet below sea level because of sinking water tables being rapidly depleted by deep wells.

The agency also reported that massive siltation of the Pasig River has dangerously reduced its capacity to drain Metro Manila of floodwaters caused by even minor thunderstorms.

In the northern Luzon provinces devastated by Supertyphoon “Juan” (international code name: Megi) in October, the work of rebuilding broken lives and ravaged communities continues outside the peripheral vision of Manila—until the next environmental disaster strikes. –Winston A. Marbella, Philippine Daily Inquirer

(Editor’s Note: The author is chief executive of a think tank specializing in transforming social, political, cultural and technological trends into business strategy. Comments are welcome at Marbella International Business Consultancy, e-mail mibc2006@gmail.com.)