Developing countries such as the Philippines are bearing the brunt of the cost of climate change, with huge economic losses from extreme weather like cyclones and droughts, activists said yesterday.
"The impacts of climate change will be most catastrophic to countries who are the least able to cope," Greenpeace Southeast Asia campaigner Abigail Jabines said.
Jabines said four successive cyclones toward the end of 2004 alone cost the Philippines 7.61 billion pesos (U.S$152.3 million), while a 1998 drought in the south damaged 828 million pesos worth of crops.
In a media briefing ahead of this week's climate change conference in Nairobi, Kenya, Greenpeace urged the Philippine government to invest heavily in renewable energy sources, citing studies suggesting that unchecked climate change will have disastrous economic impact, especially on developing countries.
Jabines said developed countries are not solely to blame for dumping billions of tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Instead of avoiding industrialized nations' mistakes, the Philippines still relies for energy on coal, she said.
"It is imperative for the Philippines to switch to renewable and sustainable energy sources," Jabines said, noting that the country has harnessed less than 1 percent of its energy needs from renewable resources such as solar and wind power.
Studies have shown that carbon dioxide emissions heat the Earth's surface, leading to more water vapor in the air and contributing to higher temperatures.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
Japan is to downgrade its description of ties with China from “one of its most important” in an annual diplomatic report, according to a draft reviewed by Reuters, as relations with Beijing worsen. This year’s Diplomatic Bluebook, which Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government is expected to approve next month, would instead describe China as an important neighbor and the relationship as “strategic” and “mutually beneficial.” The draft cites a series of confrontations with Beijing over the past year, including export controls on rare earths, radar lock-ons targeting Japanese military aircraft and increased pressure around Taiwan. The shift in tone underscores a deterioration
A retired US colonel behind a privately financed rocket launch site in the Dominican Republic sees the project as a response to China’s dominance of the space race in Latin America. Florida-based Launch on Demand is slated to begin building a US$600 million facility in a remote region near the border with Haiti late this year. The project is designed to meet surging demand for the heavy-lift rockets needed to put clusters of satellites into orbit. It is also an answer to China’s growing presence in the region, said CEO Burton Catledge, a former commander of the US Air Force’s 45th Operations
Germany is considering Australia’s Ghost Bat robot fighter as it looks to select a combat drone to modernize its air force, German Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius said yesterday. Germany has said it wants to field hundreds of uncrewed fighter jets by 2029, and would make a decision soon as it considers a range of German, European and US projects developing so-called “collaborative combat aircraft.” Australia has said it will integrate the Ghost Bat, jointly developed by Boeing Australia and the Royal Australian Air Force, into its military after a successful weapons test last year. After inspecting the Ghost Bat in Queensland yesterday,
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