Five hundred Climate Walkers cross the San Juanico Bridge on Nov. 8 to Tacloban city, Haiyan ground zero.
Today marks the start of the Philippines’ Climate Change Consciousness Week. The youth, local government, and business summits will take place in Manila until Wednesday, although the government also co-sponsored yesterday’s first National Bike Day in several cities across the country.
But I’d like to think of the almost 40-day Climate Walk, which ended earlier this month, as one big awareness-raising campaign which the government can and should sustain.
The Walk gathered a broad range of civil society organizations, government officials, faith-based groups, youth, celebrities, and concerned citizens during its October 2 launch at our Kilometer Zero in Rizal Park, Manila.
By the time I caught up with the battle-hardened core group of a dozen walkers towards the end of October, I was struggling like hell to keep pace and to pull through with their usual 25-40 kilometers per day. I also had to get used to sleeping mostly in town halls or basketball courts—which also happen to be the evacuation centers—and waking up at 4 AM to Melissa Etheridge’s “I Need to Wake Up” blaring on a loudspeaker.
And on November 8, exactly a year after Haiyan first made landfall, I crossed the San Juanico Bridge with around 500 fellow advocates and typhoon survivors seeking climate justice. I even got to hold the enormous “Climate Justice Now” banner on the way to Tacloban city, which is widely recognized as Haiyan ground zero.
Learning from Irosin
Another highlight of the Climate Walk for me was the entire leg in the town of Irosin, Sorsogon province’s rice granary and also one of its tourist draws because of its natural hot and cool springs. It was spared by Yolanda, but has stood against countless typhoons over the years.
When we finally reached the town center for the Climate Walk, the core group led by Climate Change Commissioner Yeb Saño were expecting to do the usual short program for the climate fair—talk about climate change and climate justice, connect it to local issues, and hand out disaster and climate toolkits specifically geared for local officials, in exchange for their commitment that they will make their climate plans and implement them.
We already knew that Irosin hosts one of the first climate resiliency field schools in the country, which was initiated by a non-governmental organization but which has been taken on by local officials and the farmers themselves. The municipal agriculturist shared how they invested in their own weather observation instruments, trained other agriculturists and farmers to understand weather and climate information, and how they continue to record and analyze local weather data not just for farmers but even other townsfolk.
Some farmer students have learned to do weather forecasting on their own and to compare their own observations with the official weather agency data. The members of the farmers’ organization BIGKIS Sorsogon told me that more of them should learn these things as the weather and their cropping seasons becomes even more unpredictable, and as climate change worsens their odds.
Members of Bigkis Sorsogon, a farmers’ organization. The term “bigkis” can refer to a sheaf (as in of rice) or a united people.
What surprised us was the town’s head planner announcing that they have already made a local climate change action plan, which incorporates downscaled climate projections and which breaks down proposed actions per sector.
Since the 1970s, the townspeople led by the parish have organized themselves against a geothermal plant which is still in the works, and which threatens their famed springs and farmlands.
Countless other people shared their stories not only of struggle but also success. These people continue to rise above the challenges posed not only by disasters and climate change, but also poverty and inequality. They have shared their time and resources for the cause, even when most of them do not have a lot to begin with. You can read more of their experiences by visiting the Filipinos for Climate Justice website as well as the official Facebook and Twitter pages of the Climate Walk.
“Plan. Act. Achieve.”
We must continue to push for recovery and rehabilitation efforts and funds to reach those who are still in need. Even so, we must also keep challenging local and national officials alike to think of climate action as a necessary step in ensuring that we not only survive but also thrive despite increasing disaster and climate risks.
All of the local officials who participated in the Climate Walk committed to seek climate justice and act on climate change in their own towns and cities. But only Irosin and Catbalogan City in Samar had comprehensive local climate plans. Irosin’s is not yet fully approved by the local council, while Catbalogan’s has yet to be implemented.
There have been several efforts from government and civil society alike to help local governments integrate disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation and mitigation in their development plans. In fact, tomorrow’s local government summit aims to encourage local officials to do their plans and actually implement them.
I hope that the national government took note not only of the towns and cities which made commitments throughout the Climate Walk, but also of those around the country which are already ahead with their plans and programs, and whose leaders can share best practices with their colleagues. In the same way that our country’s delegation to the UN climate talks has consistently called for finance, technology, and capacity-building so we can better adapt to and even mitigate climate change, so do local governments need national support to be empowered to take climate action on their own.
The Philippines and other developing countries, which have contributed the least to the climate crisis, are bearing the brunt of the consequences. The Climate Walk therefore challenged world leaders, particularly those from developed countries, to act decisively on climate change. But local and national leaders have to walk the climate talk at home so we can rightfully demand other countries to do the same in Lima and in Paris. Rolling out those disaster and climate plans should only be the beginning.