Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III has called on the media to help accelerate climate action in the country by spearheading the education and advocacy campaigns necessary to motivate Filipinos to be at the frontlines of the global fight against climate change.

With media playing an indispensable role in keeping people informed about relevant concerns and contextual issues that frame the daily grind of news, climate change should be among their top priorities, given the urgency in addressing this worsening environmental crisis, Dominguez said.

“I know that environmental news can sometimes be boring. It can be too scientific, complicated, and full of gloom and doom,” Dominguez said during a recent media forum.

“But you have an important mission to bring new perspectives to the climate change discourse and inspire communities to take action in mitigating this crisis,” he pointed out.

Dominguez said “I am confident that you all have creative ways to center climate change and environmental issues as top priorities in business and politics.

Dominguez said media can start by writing newsworthy and incisive articles that would encourage Filipinos to “spring into action” to help reverse the ill effects of the climate crisis.

“The greatest defense to this fight against climate change is climate literacy. I urge you to accelerate climate action through advocacy and education,” he said.

Underscoring the urgency of mitigating the effects of climate change, Dominguez said the Philippines ranks 9th out of 181 nations in the world as the most affected country from extreme weather events in the 2020 World Risk Index.

On top of that, the Philippines is also being visited by an average of 20 tropical cyclones yearly as it sits squarely at the Typhoon Belt.

The Philippine archipelago is also sinking at a rate four times faster than the global rate, which is alarming, especially because most of the population is situated in coastal communities and low-lying areas, Dominguez said.

He cited as an example the town of Masantol, Pampanga, which has been experiencing an uninterrupted cycle of flooding.

Dominguez also said that over the last decade, the Philippines incurred losses and damages estimated at about P506 billion from climate-related hazards, which is a “staggering amount” equivalent to an annual average of about P50 billion.

In 2021, damage to infrastructure and agriculture from Typhoon ‘Odette’ alone ballooned to about P25 billion.

“Clearly, climate change is a real threat and a daily reality for the Philippines. For us, turning back the effects of climate change is a matter of survival,” Dominguez said.

As the President’s official representative to the Climate Change Commission (CCC), Dominguez said he is “very determined” to shift the country’s focus from “merely theorizing and talking about climate change, to implementing practical and doable projects on the ground to mitigate its destructive effects.”