Clima. Tufão nas Filipinas volta a fazer soar todos os
alarmes
Por Diogo Pombo
publicado em 12 Nov 2013 – in (jornal) i online
O efeito borboleta veio das Filipinas e deu o alerta em
Varsóvia: é urgente fazer mais na luta contra as alterações climáticas
Entre 2005 e 2011 os números mostram que Portugal conseguiu
sucessivamente reduzir as suas emissões de gases com efeito de estufa para a
atmosfera. Se nestes seis anos os EUA, a China, a Rússia, o Japão ou a Índia -
países com as maiores fatias poluentes do mundo - partilhassem a tendência,
talvez a urgência da 19.a Conferência das Partes (COP 19) da Convenção das
Nações Unidas para as Alterações Climáticas não fosse a mesma. Começaram ontem
a aterrar em Varsóvia, Polónia, os representantes de 193 países que nos
próximos 12 dias vão discutir medidas, a oficializar em 2015, para combater o
aquecimento global.
A ocasião é séria, e Christiana Figueres, responsável da ONU
para o clima e uma das primeiras a discursar na convenção, fez questão de o
lembrar: "O que acontece aqui não é um jogo, não há duas equipas, mas toda
a humanidade, [e] todos vamos vencer ou ser vencidos consoante o futuro que
construímos", argumentou, em alusão ao facto de o evento decorrer, até 22
de Novembro, no estádio nacional de Varsóvia. Mas só nos últimos três dias o
evento contará com mais de uma centena de chefes de Estado e ministros dos
países participantes.
A missão da convenção não é nova, mas a sua relevância e
urgência foram reforçadas na sexta-feira, quando o supertufão Haiyan varreu as
Filipinas e causou, para já, mais de 12 mil mortes. Um "impacto
devastador" e uma "realidade grave", lamentou Figueres no início
do seu discurso.
A ONU vai pôr os países a discutirem formas de evitar que,
até ao final deste século, o aumento da temperatura média global não exceda os
2 graus Celsius em relação ao nível verificado na era pré-industrial, antes de
No final de Setembro, contudo, um relatório do Painel
Intergovernamental para as Alterações Climáticas (IPCC, na sigla inglesa, órgão
também da ONU) mostrou que até 2100, com este ritmo, o planeta se arrisca a
aquecer entre os 0,3 e os 4,8 graus e a ver o nível médio da água do mar
aumentar até um metro.
A reunião de Varsóvia é mais uma tentativa para o evitar. O
que falta, porém, é o consenso dos governantes quanto às medidas necessárias
para diminuir o peso dos seus países nas emissões globais - e que se
comprometam a adoptá-las a partir de 2020. "Os políticos têm um
comportamento irracional porque não estão a proteger as gerações futuras à
escala planetária", condenou Francisco Ferreira.
As consequências das alterações climáticas, diz, "terão
custos muito superiores" aos "investimentos necessários para reduzir
a queima de combustíveis fósseis" e a "concentração de CO 2 na
atmosfera". Em Portugal, essas consequências poderão traduzir-se nas
próximas décadas em ameaças sobretudo nas zonas costeiras. "No futuro, a
erosão será agravada pela subida do nível do mar, que deverá ser superior a
meio metro e atingir valores até um metro", avisa Filipe Duarte Santos,
com base em dados do último relatório do IPCC.
O coordenador do Climate Change Research Group, projecto
inserido na Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, acrescenta que
"há troços" da costa portuguesa "que são vulneráveis ao risco de
inundação e perda de terreno". Francisco Ferreira lembra que "ficar
sem as praias" seria "um prejuízo incalculável para Portugal".
No seu orçamento para 2014, o Ministério do Ambiente e do Ordenamento do
Território dedica 50,5% da despesa prevista (335,8 milhões de euros) a
programas dedicados à defesa da linha costeira.
Para 2014 está marcada a derradeira convenção em Lima,
capital do Peru. No ano seguinte, em Paris, a ONU pretende fechar o acordo que
vincule os signatários a cumprirem as medidas decididas a partir de 2020. E
neste barco terão de estar os países desenvolvidos. "Sem eles nem vale a
pena", avisou o especialista da Quercus, ao lembrar "que para isso já
temos o Protocolo de Quioto". Em vigor desde 2005, hoje as metas do acordo
incidem apenas nos países que entre si têm 15% das emissões globais - os 37
países que o ano passado em Doha, no Qatar (na anterior conferência) se
vincularem ao segundo período do protocolo, de
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| "From being top of the global political agenda just four years ago, climate change is now barely mentioned by the political elites in London or Washington, Tokyo or Paris. Australia is not even sending a junior minister to Warsaw. The host, Poland, will be using the meeting to celebrate its coal industry. The pitifully small pledges of money made by rich countries to help countries such as the Philippines or Bangladesh to adapt to climate change have barely materialised. Meanwhile, fossil fuel subsidies are running at more than $500bn (£311bn) a year, and vested commercial interests are increasingly influencing the talks." |
Typhoon Haiyan: what really alarms Filipinos is the
rich world ignoring climate change
As Haiyan batters the
Phillipines, the political elites at the UN climate talks will again leave poor
countries to go it alone
John Vidal
theguardian.com, Friday 8 November 2013 / http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/08/typhoon-haiyan-rich-ignore-climate-change
I met Naderev Saño last year in Doha, when the world's
governments were meeting for the annual UN climate talks. The chief negotiator
of the Filipino delegation was distraught. Typhoon Bopha, a category five
"super-typhoon" with 175mph winds (282km/h) had just ripped through
the island of Mindanao. It was the 16th major storm of the year, hundreds of
thousands of people had lost their homes and more than 1,000 had died. Saño and
his team knew well the places where it had hit the hardest.
"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 every year to storms. We have received no climate finance to
adapt or to prepare ourselves for typhoons and other extreme weather we are now
experiencing. We have not seen any money from the rich countries to help us to
adapt ... We cannot go on like this. It cannot be a way of life that we end up
running always from storms," he said. He later told the assembly:
"Climate change negotiations cannot be based on the way we currently
measure progress. It is a clear sign of planetary and economic and
environmental dysfunction ... The whole world, especially developing countries
struggling to address poverty and achieve social and human development,
confronts these same realities.
"I speak on behalf of 100 million Filipinos, not as a
leader of my delegation, but as a Filipino …" At this point he broke down.
Saño was uncontactable today, because phone lines to Manila
were down, but he was thought to be on his way to Warsaw for the UN talks,
which resume on Monday. This time, with uncanny timing, his country has been
battered by the even stronger super-typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful
ever recorded anywhere – 25
miles (40km) wide and reaching astonishing speeds of
possibly 200mph (322km/h).
We don't yet know the death toll or damage done, but we do
know that the strength of tropical storms such as Haiyan or Bopha is linked to
sea temperature. As the oceans warm with climate change, there is extra energy
in the system. Storms may not be increasing in frequency but Pacific ocean
waters are warming faster than expected, and there is a broad scientific
consensus that typhoons are now increasing in strength.
Typhoon Haiyan, like Bopha, will be seen widely in developing
countries as a taste of what is to come, along with rising sea levels and water
shortages. But what alarms the governments of vulnerable countries the most is
that they believe rich countries have lost the political will to address
climate change at the speed needed to avoid catastrophic change in years to
come.
From being top of the global political agenda just four
years ago, climate change is now barely mentioned by the political elites in
London or Washington, Tokyo or Paris. Australia is not even sending a junior
minister to Warsaw. The host, Poland, will be using the meeting to celebrate
its coal industry. The pitifully small pledges of money made by rich countries
to help countries such as the Philippines or Bangladesh to adapt to climate change
have barely materialised. Meanwhile, fossil fuel subsidies are running at more
than $500bn (£311bn) a year, and vested commercial interests are increasingly
influencing the talks.
As the magnitude of the adverse impacts of human-induced
climate change becomes apparent, the most vulnerable countries say they have no
option but to go it alone. The good news is that places such as Bangladesh,
Nepal, the small island states of the Pacific and Caribbean, and many African
nations, are all starting to adapt their farming, fishing and cities.
But coping with major storms, as well as sea level rise and
water shortages, is expected to cost poor countriues trillions of dollars,
which they do not have. "Time is running out," Saño told the world
last year. "Please, let this year be remembered as the year the world
found the courage to take responsibility for the future we want. I ask of all
of us here, if not us, then who? If not now, then when? If not here, then
where?"
 |
Yeb Sano, the lead negotiator for the Philippines at the COP
19 Climate Talks and has pledged a hunger strike in solidarity with victims of
Typhoon Haiyan.
|
CLIMATE CHANGE
Philippines Negotiator Ties
Massive Typhoon to Global Warming and Pledges Hunger Strike at Warsaw Climate
Talks
|November 11, 2013 / http://ecowatch.com/2013/11/11/philippines-typhoon-global-warming-warsaw-climate-talks/
By Jamie Henn
Diplomats, negotiators and civil society representatives
from around the world held their breath this afternoon at the United Nations
Climate Talks in Warsaw, Poland, this afternoon as Yeb Sano, the lead
negotiator for the Philippines, began to address the opening of the conference.
More than 10,000 people are feared dead in the aftermath of
Typhoon Haiyan, which slammed into the Philippines this weekend, causing
apocalyptic devastation across a number of islands.
While scientists are careful not to connect any single
weather event to climate change, it’s clear that global warming is loading the
dice for devastating events like Typhoon Haiyan. Rising seas, warmer waters and
a warmer and wetter atmosphere, all contribute to supercharge storms like
Haiyan and Hurricane Sandy. Scientists have warned that extreme weather events
will only increase in intensity and frequency if climate change is left
unchecked.
Addressing the UN Climate Talks on behalf of the
Philippines, Sano didn’t hesitate to connect Typhoon Haiyan to climate change
and the fossil fuel industry’s role in fueling the crisis.
He began by thanking the global community, and especially
young people, for the support and solidarity that they have shown the people of
the Philippines.
“I thank the youth present here and the billions of young
people around the world who stand steadfast behind my delegation and who are
watching us shape their future,” said Sano. “I thank civil society, both who
are working on the ground as we race against time in the hardest hit areas, and
those who are here in Warsaw prodding us to have a sense of urgency and
ambition.
“We are deeply moved by this manifestation of human
solidarity,” Sano continued. “This outpouring of support proves to us that as a
human race, we can unite; that as a species, we care.”
Sano spoke of the terrifying devastation that Typhoon Haiyan
has wrecked upon the Philippines, before connecting the dots directly to the
climate crisis.
“To anyone who continues to deny the reality that is climate
change, I dare you to get off your ivory tower and away from the comfort of you
armchair,” he said. “I dare you to go to the islands of the Pacific, the
islands of the Caribbean and the islands of the Indian ocean and see the
impacts of rising sea levels; to the mountainous regions of the Himalayas and
the Andes to see communities confronting glacial floods, to the Arctic where
communities grapple with the fast dwindling polar ice caps, to the large deltas
of the Mekong, the Ganges, the Amazon and the Nile where lives and livelihoods
are drowned, to the hills of Central America that confronts similar monstrous
hurricanes, to the vast savannas of Africa where climate change has likewise
become a matter of life and death as food and water becomes scarce.”
“Not to forget the massive hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico
and the eastern seaboard of North America,” Sano continued. “And if that is not
enough, you may want to pay a visit to the Philippines right now. What my
country is going through as a result of this extreme climate event is madness.
The climate crisis is madness.”
Sano said that he identified with the young people and
activists around the world who are standing up to the fossil fuel industry,
protesting in the streets and committing civil disobedience. He shared their
frustration and appreciated their courageous action. The same sort of
leadership was necessary here in Warsaw, he said.
“We can take drastic action now to ensure that we prevent a
future where super typhoons are a way of life,” said Sano. “Because we refuse,
as a nation, to accept a future where super typhoons like Haiyan become a fact
of life. We refuse to accept that running away from storms, evacuating our
families, suffering the devastation and misery, having to count our dead,
become a way of life. We simply refuse to.”
Sano then went off the prepared script of his remarks that
were released to the media to announce that he would be commencing a voluntary
fast.
“In solidarity with my countrymen who are struggling to find
food back home and with my brother who has not had food for the last three
days, in all due respect Mr. President, and I mean no disrespect for your kind
hospitality, I will now commence a voluntary fasting for the climate. This
means I will voluntarily refrain from eating food during this COP until a
meaningful outcome is in sight.”
Meaningful action, he explained would involve real
commitments around climate finance.
“We call on this COP to pursue work until the most
meaningful outcome is in sight,” Sano said further. “Until concrete pledges
have been made to ensure mobilization of resources for the Green Climate Fund.
Until the promise of the establishment of a loss and damage mechanism has been
fulfilled; until there is assurance on finance for adaptation; until concrete
pathways for reaching the committed 100 billion dollars have been made; until
we see real ambition on stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations. We must put
the money where our mouths are.”
“Let Poland, let Warsaw, be remembered as the place where we
truly cared to stop this madness,” Sano concluded. “Can humanity rise to this
occasion? Mr. President, I still believe we can.”
At the end of his speech, the entire room here at the
negotiations rose to their feet in a standing ovation. As the applause
continued for minute after minute, a chant started up up in the back of the
room, “We stand with you! We stand with you!”
The Philippines, and Yeb Sano have become a voice for the
billions of people around the world who are already feeling the impacts of
climate change.and are worried about their and their children’s future. Let’s
hope that not only the public, but our politicians, can find the courage to
stand with him and all of those pushing for action here at the talks in Warsaw.
 |
Typhoon Haiyan: there is
worse to come
The first disaster to kill
more than a million people could happen within our lifetimes
Editorial / Guardian / http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/11/typhoon-haiyan-there-is-worse-to-come
No single typhoon, flood or drought anywhere in the world
can be blamed on global warming, but the inexorable rise of the global
thermometer is nevertheless an indicator of worse to come. Cyclones, hurricanes
and typhoons are temperature-dependent phenomena. They become increasingly
hazardous as sea temperatures rise. As average global temperatures increase, so
does the likelihood of ever greater extremes of local temperature. So does
evaporation, and so does the capacity of air to carry ever greater volumes of
water vapour. So the lesson of typhoon Haiyan, which struck the Philippines
with unparalleled fury on Friday, is that there is more to come, with more
deaths, more destruction, more wrecked economies.
This would be true even without global warming. Population
growth rates might have declined, but every 60 minutes there are another 8,000
people in the world: about 75 million every year. Most of these are in the
developing world, and since so much of the developing world is within and
around the tropics, where cyclones are a seasonal hazard, that means there will
be more potential victims in the path of any climate-related disaster. For the
first time in human history, more people are concentrated in the cities than
dispersed in the countryside, and this concentration is expected to continue
until almost two-thirds of all humanity lives in the cities. That means that
any typhoon that hits an urban region will find more people in the way.
But more than 2 billion people have to survive on incomes of
no more than $2 a day, and these too are crowded in cities in and near the
tropics. These people are more likely to live in substandard housing, some of
it shamelessly jerrybuilt by greedy landlords and authorised by corrupt
authorities, or in shanty towns on unstable or marginal land at risk from flood
and landslip when the heavens open. The schools built for their children are
liable to collapse in earthquake or cyclone, any hospitals available to them
are likely to be reduced to rubble along with their houses.
The Philippines government, with a long and cruel experience
of typhoons, had a comprehensive disaster management strategy, plenty of
warning, and it knew what to expect. The second lesson of Haiyan is that even
those who make ready for bad weather may be overwhelmed by even worse.
The final lesson is that, sooner or later, some unparalleled
disaster will slam with little or no warning into some crowded city managed by
a heedless authority in a country run by a corrupt or brutal oligarchy. It
could be the first disaster to kill more than a million, and it could happen
within our lifetimes. There may be worse to come, and not just because of
climate change.
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