Mitigating the Impact of Climate Change on Food
The Philippines
Natalie Muenster, Nicolet
The Philippines recognizes the importance of maintaining the natural climate balance in
jeopardy of global warming. Low-altitude regions are particularly affected by the water level
increase, which threatens coastal regions with salt-water intrusion and increased salinity and pH
of soil and water. Acidification and bleaching of coral reefs will imperil the fishing industry, and
crops with low tolerance and adaptability will be devastated. The Earth’s median temperature has
risen.8 °C since pre-industrial times; farmers worldwide have experienced diminishing yields in
the key crops wheat, rice, maize, soybeans, barley, and sorghum. These crops total comprise
55% of non-wheat calories and 70% of animal feed consumed worldwide, and an increase of 3°C
would devastate regions at all altitudes. Rice and maize are major Philippine crops, vital to an
economy largely based on food exports.
Furthermore, the Philippines is all too aware that high water level has increased the
frequency of unpredictable and stronger weather, especially out-of-season tropical cyclones such
as the 2009 Ondoy, Pepengand, and 2012 Bopha Typhoons, which together cost US$800 million
in crop damage. Philippine climate change commissioner Naderev M. Saño remarks, "each
destructive typhoon season costs us 2% of our GDP, and the reconstruction costs a further 2%,
which means we lose nearly 5% of our economy,” as a result of the unusual typhoons. Global
warming, a product of unchecked greenhouse gas emissions, poses a substantial threat to less
developed countries that do not have adequate ability to combat its deleterious impact to food
supply.
The Philippine government has taken steps to combat the effects of climate change,
particularly with regard to provinces destroyed by recent typhoons. It collaborated with the
Climate Change Commission (CCC), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and
the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) in 2012 on Project Twin
Phoenix, which will provide these areas with US$1,600,000 to reduce disaster risk and facilitate
climate change adaptation. Past measures to protect agriculture and prepare the Philippines for
future disasters include programs funded by grants from Japan, Spain, AusAID, and UNDP, all
of which expired in 2012. A generous US$4 million grant from the World Bank for the
Philippines Climate Change Adaptation Project (PhilCCAP) went into effect December of 2010
and increased food security against climate change and natural disasters. The Philippines fully
supports the UN agreement by which committed parties will contribute $100 billion a year by
2020 to developing countries to combat the current and future effects of climate change. Longterm solutions have also been implemented, such as the Kyoto Protocol 1997 UN legislation,
which set binding targets for greenhouse gas emission reduction. The Philippines believes that
the decision reached at the 2012 UN Doha Climate Talks—by which cooperating countries must
increase from 5% to 18% their emission reductions relative to the 1990 amount—is an adequate
step toward controlling anthropogenic global warming in the distant future. To further ensure this
goal is achieved, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) should make
frequent assessments of progress in all participating countries.
International financial support to countries most affected by climate change, however, is,
according to Commissioner Saño, unacceptable, in part because countries with the greatest
ability to help have so far been inactive. Wealthy countries have failed to provide explanation as
to how the financial pledge would be fulfilled. The Philippines is frustrated by the lack of
progress shown in the 2012 Doha climate talks and alarmed that the countries completely
committed to the second period of the Kyoto Protocol only represent 15% of global emissions.
Motivated by the consequences of Typhoon Bopha, the Philippines asks for more UN urgency
concerning dwindling food supply, and more financial help to reconstruct agriculture in affected
countries. Funding for the improvement of infrastructure, irrigation systems, and agriculture
management will produce immediate results by increasing agricultural resilience to climate
change. Furthermore, the Philippines believes that because technological advances such as
genetically engineered crops have historically been the most successful responses to
environmental change, further developments may counterbalance the climatic effects in the near
future. As a country most severely affected by climate change, the Philippines begs the UN to be
more aware of the issue’s urgency, and implores that global initiative be taken to prevent and
adapt to the negative impacts of climate change on food supply.