In the Wake of Hagupit: Learning from Mistakes and the Long Walk Ahead

Hagupit basically means “shithole” in my native language Bangla. It would be an apt, if crude, summary of the kind of situation the Philippines – and many other climate vulnerable countries – find themselves in.

For the fourth consecutive year during the annual UN Climate Conference, a major typhoon is battering the Philippines. Last year, typhoon Haiyan, the strongest recorded storm to have made landfall, claimed over 6,000 lives. Hagupit seems just as destructive in scale. If you are a religious or spiritual person, it is difficult to not take that as a sign of urgency from some higher power.

All over the world, the frequency and intensity of extreme climate events have soared drastically in recent years. Floods throughout the Indian subcontinent killed thousands and displaced millions in the last few months. The ongoing California drought is the most severe in 1200 years, a study found, and is costing the state over two billion dollars in losses this year. Despite the enormous suffering from these events, there is still insufficient mainstream public discourse linking this to climate change.

Climate scientists have offered notes of caution for many decades now, with the clear acknowledgement that the system is far too complex for us to understand or predict to perfection. They predicted we would have increasingly destructive cyclones, longer and more intense droughts and heat waves – among numerous other equally serious impacts.

Though we cannot link any one event with confidence to climate change because of the uncertainties involved, clear signs that we can now all see are all around us. We ignored scientific warnings so far and continued increasing emissions recklessly, and now we are suffering from the grave consequences.

The latest warnings are far more dire: if we ignore them now, we risk “severe, widespread, and irreversible” damages that we must prevent. The uncertainty in “where we are headed” is not an argument for inaction when our best scientists say the range of outcomes is from really shitty to “we’re f’d”.

The UN Environment Program (UNEP) released a report yesterday noting that climate impacts over the coming decades will likely cost three times more than previously predicted. While hundreds of billions of dollars sounds bad enough, the numbers conceal the very real effects on millions of the most vulnerable people losing their lives and livelihoods, and communities being shattered in unquantifiable and permanent ways.

In these desperate times, after week one of the two-week long climate negotiations happening in Lima, Peru – there has been little breakthrough on short to medium term ambition towards rapidly curbing our greenhouse gas diet. I am utterly dumbfounded that everyone still seems to be trying to just get their way and “win”.

What is lost in this convoluted process is the fact that there are no winners here. The people are the biggest losers by a long shot – but governments and businesses do not fare much better. No one wins in a world plagued by water and food scarcity, shrinking land and displaced millions from sea level rise, and regular major climate disasters like supertyphoons.

Our governments worldwide who come into power on short-term mandates are under significant constraints that prevent them from pursuing visionary action. Climate action, particularly, is shackled by the most powerful corporate lobby in the world, and administrations have little incentive to go against these special interests and drive action that will continue in future years when they are not in power. This is why climate action is in dire need of people’s voice to drive political ambition.

There are signs that this is happening. The People’s Climate March in September was an amazingly inspiring recent example. More than 600,000 people marched on the streets in 162 countries together with a clear message – climate action now. The Philippines People’s Climate Walk similarly completed an 875 km long walk from Manilla to Tacloban expressing solidarity, generating awareness, and demanding climate justice.

As more and more communities face current impacts of the climate crisis and realize what this means for their future, they are demanding that their leaders stand with them on the right side of history. In the coming week, people will mobilize again in Lima, Peru for the People’s Summit with the same loud message.

But we are far from where we need to be. In the United States, where rapid action is desperately needed, public skepticism is way too high, with close to 50 percent people not believing that current climate change is largely human-caused. Toxic propaganda pushed through media establishments like the Fox empire have so far succeeded, and money in politics is blocking any action. However, it seems that the stupidity of statements made by many right-wing politicians on climate change is slowly starting to catch on.

The next 12 months are of unprecedented importance in the history of the world. The Paris climate change conference in December 2015 is a major milestone where an agreement must be signed to set us on a rapid course to a 100 percent clean world. We are already late, and there is no more time to waste.

Each of us has a duty to do whatever we can from our own spheres and engage, educate and empower others in this process. Without people’s active participation in the decision-making process, we are sure to fall short of the level of ambition needed.

This does not mean that everyone needs to go out to the streets right now – there are other important ways to contribute as well. Change comes through the awakening of consciousness, willingness to engage in conversations and finding our own unique contributions. It is time for us as people of one world to stand together and create the only acceptable future.