EDITORS DESK

I have a confession to make – in my four decades as a citizen of this country, I have never voted. There is no rhyme or reason why; maybe, I was just lazy or I just didn’t care. So I was so surprised when I found myself one afternoon at my district’s COMELEC office to register as a first-time voter. I didn’t make the “cut” so the next day, I went to a mall registration site and lined up patiently until it was my turn. I waited for around five hours and it was so uncharacteristic of me to hang on that long.

Why the change of heart? I confess that I registered as a voter because I was driven by “fear” and a sense of anxiety. This fear that I have is not only because of what’s happening with the world in this prolonged pandemic, it is more than that as it concerns our survival on this planet.

To put some context, I became editor of this paper’s environment section around two years ago. It is customary for us to receive emails from companies and organizations. What I’ve noticed lately is that I’ve been receiving more than the usual emails and most (if not all) are bleak – loss of forest cover, dangers to biodiversity, illegal cutting of trees, infestation of single-use plastics, piling of pandemic waste, even death threats to mountain rangers.

On the day I’m writing this piece, I got over a hundred emails from all over the world sounding one alarm – “we are in a climate crisis.” When I started in the environment section, there were some bright spots, especially with the Paris Agreement. Majority of the countries in the world, including the Philippines, have committed to cut climate pollution and strengthen the commitment to save the planet over time.

But what’s the latest? I got an email update from the UN urging developed countries to stick to their commitment. In a statement, Secretary General Antonio Guterres said: “The world urgently needs a clear and unambiguous commitment to the 1.5 degree goal of the Paris Agreement from all G20 nations. This signal is desperately needed by the billions of people already on the frontlines of the climate crisis and by markets, investors, and industries who require certainty that a net zero climate resilient future is inevitable.”

The UN chief also reminded that science indicates that to meet that ambitious yet achievable goal, the world must achieve carbon neutrality before 2050 and cut dangerous greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent by 2030 from 2010 levels. “But we are way off track!” he warned.

How do I connect this UN statement and my stint as environment editor to my insistence this time to be a registered voter in the 2022 election?

Let me be frank. Climate is not an easy subject that can be learned from a few PowerPoint slides. It is a complex and multifaceted issue that touches on economics, urban development, resource management, and, of course, our survival as a nation. Climate is not just about tree-planting, estero cleanup, and the use of an eco-bag. I even have to attend a series of seminars just to learn proper climate reporting.

Since I’m now a registered voter, I have the right to ask our presidential candidates their climate platform. I want to know their thoughts and plans about renewable energy, carbon emissions, mining inside a protected area, land reclamation, even the legality of a dam in an ancestral domain and the feasibility of a dolomite beach. Yes, these may be hard questions but these issues concern our future. And please, I don’t want to hear motherhood statements from them such as “we must love the environment” or “let’s take care of the planet.” We’ve had enough clowns as leaders!

I hope you agree with me on this one: “A candidate (who wins) who has no post-pandemic recovery plan would be disastrous for our country. But more than that, a candidate (who wins) who has no realistic plans to address the climate crisis would only bring catastrophe to us and the next generations of Filipinos.”

(Johannes L. Chua is the editor of the Environment page.)