Press Release
September 23, 2008

3% slide in world economies
seen in face of increasing global temperature

There is a big possibility that the global gross domestic product (GDP) would result into a three percent decline in the face of the steadily increasing global average temperature.

A recent finding by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) 4th Assessment Report, according to Senator Loren Legarda, showed that a 2-4 degree Celsius increase in the prevailing global average temperature could lead into massive decline of all economies in the world.

The report also revealed that every ton of carbon costs the society $43, while a 1.5-2.5 degree Celsius rise in temperature in 50-100 years could put 30% of species at risk of extinction.

"We could just imagine what awaits humankind in the near future because of the wanton destruction it has caused over environment," Legarda said.

The Philippines is an agricultural country which sits on a hotspot. Its millions of farmers rely on traditional farming, but their oftentimes suffer consequences such low harvest or no harvest at all because of the constant typhoon visit in the country.

"When our farmers could no longer attain good harvest because of disastrous effect of extreme weather, the domino effect gives serious threat to the country's food security," she explained.

The prevailing weather in the Philippines could be characterized as two extremities - too much rains and drought - alternating all year round, and affecting the nation's overall economic performance.

"Sometimes the condition in one place could be too hot, when other places at the same time are experiencing severe floods on monsoon season. These are already happening to our country," she said.

Legarda said that the Philippines would be on the right track if it earnestly starts mainstreaming climate change in the development and poverty-reduction strategies to increase its adaptive capacity to climate-related vulnerabilities and attain sustainable development.

"The time for us to act is now," said Legarda, herself an ecological warrior who has constantly batted for the planting of two million trees under the Luntiang Pilipinas project. "People should not only be aware of what's happening around them. They should also exert effort to join in a concerted effort to address our problem in the environment."

IPCC is a scientific body tasked to evaluate the risk of climate change caused by human activity. The panel was established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) - two organizations of the United Nations (UN).

In 2007, the IPCC released its Fourth Assessment Report on the details of likely climatic consequences if the human beings' pump of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere continues unabated.

The IPCC, Nobel prize-winning body of more than 1,250 scientists, also reported that the unabated emissions would result in a temperature rise of between 1.1 and 6.4 degrees Celsius (2 to 12 degrees Fahrenheit) during the twenty-first century.

The IPCC report also said that "the world has now fully entered into the so-called geological epoch in which human activities are the main driver of the global climate system.

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