We cannot ignore the Philippines’ suffering
ETHAN JOHANSON: The destruction and loss of life caused by a series of recent typhoons in the Philippines provide another example of how climate change, driven by the world’s largest economies, disproportionately harms developing countries. As the soon-to-be leader of the world’s second largest emitter of carbon, President-elect Joe Biden must re-affirm the United States’ willingness to cooperate with the global community in the fight against climate change. His new administration should push for aggressive action that acknowledges the country’s responsibility for climate problems whose effects are most acutely felt by developing countries like the Philippines.
On November 11, Typhoon Vamco struck the Philippines with winds equivalent to a category 2 hurricane. Resulting in a death toll of 67 as of November 15, historic floods caused by the typhoon completely submerged parts of the northern Philippines. Earlier in November, Super Typhoon Goni, the world’s most powerful storm in four years, hit Catanduanes Island, an island province of the Philippines, forcing the evacuation of 389,000 people and causing agricultural damages estimated at more than $22 million. Goni and Vamco were two of six cyclones to hit the Philippines in the span of four weeks, leaving the country ravaged by flooding and intense winds.
As an archipelago nation located near the equator, the Philippines is susceptible to storms and typhoons, experiencing an average of 20 per year. The water surrounding the island country in the western Pacific has the warmest temperatures in the world, which often surpass the threshold of 28° C needed for typhoons to form. Deforestation in the Philippines has also made mudslides a deadly consequence of typhoons, and the country’s weak infrastructure has left Filipinos vulnerable to the hazards of powerful storms.
Although the Philippines’ geography predisposes it to natural disasters, climate change has aggravated the intensity of storms that make landfall there. Warmer oceans have enlarged the supply of warm, moist air that serves as fuel for tropical storms, increasing the frequency and severity of typhoons. Rising sea levels exacerbate storm surges, or temporary increases in sea level during storms. The high percentage of Filipinos living in low-lying coastal islands and loss of natural barriers to wind and water through mass deforestation does not bode well for the Philippines’ ability to mitigate the effects of worsening tropical storms and coastal flooding.
Despite experiencing some of the most devastating consequences of climate change, the Philippines has proportionally contributed little to the buildup of greenhouse gases. The Philippines emits about 131 million tons of carbon each year, less than half the annual emissions of the United Kingdom. Although still heavily dependent on coal, the Filipino government issued a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants, signaling a transition to cleaner energy sources.
The Philippines’ relatively small role in contributing to climate change will not protect it from the consequences of rising sea levels and temperatures. Ranked as one of the countries most affected by climate change, the Philippines’ fate rests in the hands of developed countries that account more for the acceleration of climate change and have greater economic capacity to invest in new technology. The increasingly devastating nature of tropical storms has prompted Filipinos to call for climate justice, arguing that rich countries and multinational corporations must help developing countries like the Philippines avert further climate disasters by committing to more ambitious goals and bearing greater costs in the fight against climate change.
Under President Trump’s administration, the United States has largely done the opposite. Instead of strengthening a global coalition of countries to counter the effects of climate change, Trump exited the Paris Agreement. Although some argue that even the Paris Agreement falls short of a sufficient response to climate change, it does draw a connection between human rights and the obligations of climate change law, a linkage made clear by the loss of life, shelter, and food in the Philippines caused by typhoons Goni and Vamco. Additionally, Trump’s domestic climate policy, overwhelmingly deregulatory, reflects a disinclination to acknowledge climate change’s severity. Due to the global character of climate change, even his domestic agenda has important implications for climate-vulnerable countries.
Upon entering office, Biden will likely enact a series of executive orders to reverse the Trump administration’s deregulatory environmental policy. However, re-establishing the United States’ commitment to collaborating with other countries and multinational bodies about long-term climate solutions could be Biden’s most crucial reversal of Trump’s approach to climate change.
As a global issue, climate change requires cooperation and coaction. The catastrophic weather events that characterize the era of climate change highlight the interconnectedness of earth’s systems and illustrate why US climate policy implications extend beyond the scope of America’s own population. The suffering of the Filipino people demands our attention, and more importantly, our action.
Ethan Johanson is a freshman in the College from Portland, Oregon. Planning on studying Government, his interests include politics, computer science, and journalism.