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EU engages RP media to address climate change challenge

The European Union, through the Delegation of the European Commission to the Philippines, is working with the Philippine mass media in increasing public awareness on the effects of climate change.

In a media forum organized recently by the EC Delegation at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Ambassador Alistair MacDonald stressed that the media plays a crucial role in building a greater awareness, a deeper understanding of climate change

During the forum, Ambassador MacDonald also outlined the EU's global strategy for combating climate change: "We have already committed ourselves to reducing our overall emissions to at least 20% below 1990 levels by 2020 – and we are ready to strengthen this target, to a reduction of 30%
below 1990 levels, if others are prepared to join us through a global climate change
agreement".

Energy Secretary Angelo T. Reyes, chair of the Philippine Presidential Task Force on Climate Change, presented the country’s strategic directions and action plan to address the climate change problem, while Juan Echanove, environment and sustainable development program officer of the EC Delegation to the Philippines, talked about “The EU Perspective: Policies and Actions,” and enumerated the EU’s various environmental initiatives.

Two Philippine experts on climate change, Manila Observatory Executive Director Antonio Yulo-Loyzaga and International Centre for Research in Agro-forestry Philippine Coordinator Dr. Rodel Lasco discussed “Climate Change in the Philippines: Causes and Consequences” and “Mitigation and Adaptation to Climate Change in the Philippines.”

For her part, news anchor Caroline Howard of ABS-CBN said “mass media should help agencies disseminate information and arrive at solutions to combat the climate change problem…As environmental journalists, we in the media are expected to do more than report what we are told. We are expected to present a wider picture, weigh in the facts and their implications, to explain what it all means and why people need to know. But our bigger role perhaps is not just to swim through the whole gamut of information and arrive at some sense of truth to global warming, but to help agencies and policy-makers arrive at solutions, disseminate information, and help prevent countries from suffering the real costs should the time come".

Manila Bulletin deskman Peter Flores highlighted the need to keep the public informed about environmental issues like climate change and their impact on people. Meanwhile, Anabel Lasaten of DWDD-AFP Radio urged her colleagues to be on their guard when reporting about climate change and to ensure that comprehensive and accurate information is given to the public.

Representatives of the EU-funded ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) in Los Baños also took part in the forum, and mounted an exhibit to show how biodiversity can be used to curb climate change through protecting forest ecosystems and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by conserving existing carbon pools; conserving marine ecosystems. According to ACB, if climate change remains unchecked, it will affect the ecosystems and threaten the ASEAN region’s thousands of species of flora and fauna.