DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 2 Nov)—Newly-elected barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan officials should seize the opportunity to effect environmental initiatives in their communities to address climate change.
Ecoteneo director Mylai Santos said in a text message on Thursday that she hopes to see environmental policies being implemented at barangay level in the days leading to the 2023 UN Climate Change Conference (COP 28).
The COP28, slated for November 30 to December 12 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, will bring together world leaders, ministers and negotiators to “take action towards achieving the world’s collective climate goals as agreed under the Paris Agreement and the Convention (Conference of the Parties to the Convention).”
“There are opportunities for action at the barangay level,” Santos said.
Among the environmental policies that she hopes the barangays will strictly enforce include the plastics-free policy, urban green spaces, and bicycle-safe and pedestrian-friendly streets.
She said that the plastics-free policy must be pursued because the plastics come from fossil fuels, which produce greenhouse gasses contributing largely to global climate change.
Santos also suggested that barangay leaders should meet their target for or establish urban green spaces “not just to offset carbon emissions from vehicular traffic but to manage urban heat.”
She added that young leaders must engage in the local environmental issues, including the Davao City Samal Island Connector Project—or the “Davao-Samal Bridge”—threatening the “Paradise Reef.”
She said corals “are the rainforests of the sea, and are more efficient carbon sinks.”
The “Paris Agreement” is a multilateral agreement, which entered into force on November 4, 2016, that targets to limit “global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels” as part of global efforts to combat climate change and adapt to its effects.
Under this agreement, countries “aim to reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible to achieve a climate neutral world by mid-century.”
The Philippines signed the Paris Agreement on April 23, 2016, and it was subsequently ratified by the Senate on March 23, 2017 under the administration of former President Rodrigo R. Duterte. (Antonio L. Colina IV / MindaNews)
