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CCC bats to bring down climate change issues to grassroots

By Lade Jean Kabagani

October 24, 2019, 2:24 pm

<p><strong>CLIMATE CHANGE AWARENESS.</strong> The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change launches a special report on climate change and land-related impacts/risks at the Sulo Rivera Hotel, Quezon City on Wednesday (Oct. 23, 2019). The report highlights the risks of climate change with land degradation, desertification and food security, as part of the CCC's 10th anniversary. <em>(PNA photo by Lade Kabagani)</em></p>

CLIMATE CHANGE AWARENESS. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change launches a special report on climate change and land-related impacts/risks at the Sulo Rivera Hotel, Quezon City on Wednesday (Oct. 23, 2019). The report highlights the risks of climate change with land degradation, desertification and food security, as part of the CCC's 10th anniversary. (PNA photo by Lade Kabagani)

MANILA—An official of the Climate Change Commission (CCC) on Wednesday said they are pushing to simplify international climate change reports to move Filipinos at the grassroots level to engage in the more important issues at hand.

CCC Secretary Emmanuel de Guzman said the commission intends to localize the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) special report on Climate Change and Land (SRCCL) which was released in Geneva, Switzerland in August.

"There is still a lot to do in terms of promoting awareness and understanding of climate change in all sectors of society," de Guzman said during the commission's 10th-anniversary celebration in Quezon City.

The CCC official admitted that the body needs more support in raising climate change awareness among Filipinos.

"What we have right now are global reports because climate change is a global problem. However, we want to understand more happenings or situation in the Philippines in terms of the threats presented by climate change and that means we need to undertake more research and studies," he added.

De Guzman underscored the demand for strengthening the national agenda on local research about climate change.

"We are collaborating with higher education institutions and state universities and colleges so that we can actually do more localized climate change-[adaptation and mitigation] related researches together with our academicians and also our local government units," he said.

He added that the public must understand issues on climate change and land-related risks.

"We call on the public especially our local communities to really invest in building the resilience to climate change, it is important that we consider the future threats to our livelihoods... If you these threats, then you can right now prepare and invest in ways that we can avoid the future loses and damages," de Guzman noted.

The IPCC special report highlights climate change impacts on land degradation, desertification, and food security.

'Localized awareness'

De Guzman said the commission is going down to the grassroots to further provide localized climate change awareness for the agriculture and aquaculture farmers.

"We are training farmers on how to cope well with the changing climate, existing weather, and extent droughts. We do this together with the local government units and we are also promoting these to the community level," he said.

De Guzman said the commission is reintroducing rainwater harvesting and promoting food gardening, as well as edible landscape farming to sustain food security at the local level, as part of pushing climate change awareness.

"We see people harvesting rainwaters before, eventually such activity has gone so we might reintroduce those simple adaptations and procedures at the local level," he said.

De Guzman also cited the need to strengthen institutional arrangements, system, and services in CCC to better deliver on the mandates given by law.

Based on the IPCC special report, changes in land conditions, either from land-use or climate change, affect global and regional climate.

At the regional scale, changing land conditions can reduce or accentuate warming and affect the intensity, frequency, and duration of extreme events. The magnitude and direction of these changes vary with location and season.

Climate change creates additional stresses on land, exacerbating existing risks to livelihoods, biodiversity, human and ecosystem, health, infrastructure, and food system.

By the virtue of Republic Act 9729 or the Climate Change Act of 2009, the CCC was established as an attached agency to the Office of the President, which serves as a policy-making body mandated to coordinate, monitor and evaluate the programs and action plans of the government relating to climate change. (PNA)

 

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