Extreme weather events battered developing countries this year despite their small contribution to climate change. The Philippines faced six successive storms in just a month which were intensified by climate crisis, the World Weather Attribution said.
Top climate polluters still haven’t paid their dues to developing nations affected by global warming. They need $2 to $4 trillion per year "to avert catastrophic climate change," the Green Climate Fund stressed, and over $5 trillion to adapt to and mitigate it, a report by the UNFCCC Standing Committee on Finance showed.
As climate warming disproportionately pains the poor, forums pushing for policy change and awards that incentivize solutions to major environmental issues have never been more vital.
Here’s a look back at five major environment stories of 2024.
COP29
The Philippines won the bid to host the loss and damage fund board that serves as a climate fund facility for vulnerable countries.
President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. passed the Loss and Damage Fund Board Act or Republic Act 12019 “to accelerate access to critical climate finance and investments for future-proofing the economy and ensuring sustainable and inclusive growth for all Filipinos.”
Scheduled for November 11 to 22, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan, COP29 gathered leaders from around 200 countries to tackle climate finance goals.
"Climate change is already here. Whether you see them or not, people are suffering in the shadows. They are dying in the dark and need more than compassion, prayers, and paperwork. COP29 is a moment of truth for the Paris Agreement," said COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev at the opening ceremony.
The conference ended with a $300 billion annual goal by 2035 for developing countries, which still falls far short of their needs to implement climate adaptation and mitigation measures. The funding pool now includes private finance or actors not tied to climate agreements.
Delegates called for reforming the multilateral financial system to tackle soaring debt in developing nations and help make climate funds more reachable.
Meanwhile, wealthy countries pledged $700 million last COP28 in Dubai, which covers just a portion of climate change loss and damage.
Plastic Treaty Talks
To tackle the escalating plastic dilemma, 175 countries three years ago convened to develop the first treaty on plastic pollution by the end of 2024. But the fifth and supposed last round of conference in Busan, South Korea remains unfinished after conflicts furthered between two main negotiating groups.
High Ambition Coalition, spanning the EU, Mexico, Canada, most of South America and Africa, and others, seeks to create a treaty tackling plastics' entire lifecycle. It believes top plastic producers including the US should pay for a just transition toward circularity and away from plastics.
Oil-producing countries and some nations, tagged as the Like-Minded Group, advocates for proper waste management. Paired with neutral stances from developed economies, including the US, UK, China, and Brazil, ending plastic pollution then becomes more challenging.
Progress was also delayed due to the "exclusion of rightsholders disproportionately impacted by plastic pollution," the Plastic Pollution Coalition said.
"Frontline allies, Indigenous Peoples, and nonprofit organizations—including the PPC team on the ground—were once again sidelined. Observers faced restricted access, with many negotiations held behind closed doors and some civil society members even removed from overcrowded rooms," it added.
Despite failing to meet the deadline for the plastics treaty this year, INC Executive Secretary Jyoti Mathur-Filipp highlighted it would set the foundation for a binding agreement once negotiations resume next year.
“Talks have moved us closer to a plastics treaty that will protect our future and end plastic pollution. We have tested the resilience of this planet to its limit. Now is the time for us to push our own limits and honor the trust placed in us," she expressed.
The Earthshot Prize
Five eco-projects were honored for their trailblazing environmental solutions, each securing $1.2 million to grow their initiatives.
The prize winners are as follows: Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative was lauded for saving the critically endangered Saiga antelope in Kazakhstan, while Green Africa Youth Organization won for building circular waste management infrastructure across Africa.
High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People was recognized for its goal to protect 30 percent of land and oceans by 2030, and Keep It Cool was awarded for using solar-powered refrigeration to reduce farmers' harvest waste. Advanced Thermovoltaic Systems was acknowledged for converting excess heat into electricity.
The fourth Earthshot Prize held in Cape Town, South Africa in November asked the 2,000 attendees to wear pre-worn clothes or those made from recycled materials in the ceremony. Meanwhile, the finalists have reduced 420,000 tons of CO2 emissions and upcycled or avoided 100 kg tons of waste from 2020 to 2023, the organization said.
“While international achievements are crucial, we must also recognize the people on the frontlines: the rangers, the indigenous peoples, and the local communities who are the guardians of our planet's most precious resources,” said Earthshot Prize Founder and President Prince William.
Last year, Filipina Rocky Sanchez Tirona, the woman leading Coastal 500, secured a finalist spot for the award.
Reclamation
Fisherfolk communities have condemned the negligence of the DENR on the Manila Bay reclamation project and its supposed rehabilitation, stating the department became an instrument to devastate the marine ecosystem of the area and its surrounding communities.
Pamalakaya and Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment petitioned for a writ of kalikasan (nature) to stop reclamation and dredging in the bay, which ravage fishermen’s livelihood.
“The combined size of these reclamation projects including those in the pipeline would be around 9,000 hectares, which is almost three times larger than the total land area of Macao and more than twice the size of the entire City of Manila,” the petition read.
Meanwhile, before 1890, marine scientists at UP Diliman noted that "mangroves covered all of 74,00 hectares of Manila Bay from the 200-kilometer coastline stretching inland across the provinces of Bataan, Bulacan, Pampanga, NCR, etc."
Today, this area has been reduced to 55,000 hectares of fishponds and only 1,000 hectares of mangroves, said Dr. Jurgenne Primavera, chief mangrove scientific advisor at the Zoological Society of London.
The mangrove expert has called for the reversion of 44,000 hectares or 80 percent of the ponds in Manila Bay into mangroves to restore coastal protection, regulate flooding, control soil erosion, and promote fisheries production, which were heavily affected by infrastructure for “progress.”
“Towns in the provinces that experience chronic flooding will require political will over years and decades to come for their relocation to higher ground, to the more inland portions of the ponds that are to be reverted. This is what needs to be done for an ecological and economically sustainable future of Manila Bay, its marine habitats, and coastal communities,” she added.
The DENR's assessment of the impact of Manila Bay reclamations has been ongoing since 2023. DENR Secretary Maria Antonia “Toni” Yulo-Loyzaga said it will be available before the year ends.
Local scene
Hundreds of schools in the Philippines this year have suspended classes or shifted their mode of learning due to sweltering heat brought by El Niño.
Some parts of the country faced intolerable levels of heat indices, with the phenomenon dealing ₱9.496 billion agriculture damage and affecting around 1.22 million families, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council reported.
It has also retained its title for the third straight time as the most disaster-prone nation, the World Risk Index revealed, which ranks countries based on susceptibility to catastrophes. The report since 2011 has marked the Philippines with a "very high" risk index.
“While it is true that disasters, extreme natural events, and crises affect everyone in the immediate surroundings, the impact of the negative consequences tends to be more severe for marginalized groups,” the report read.
Low-income countries suffer the harshest climate impacts despite their low contribution to global emissions, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Sixth Assessment Report showed.
Meanwhile, the Bataan oil spill due to the overturning of oil tanker MT Terranova amid bad weather in July has plagued yet again fisherfolk groups’ source of income. It was carrying 1.4 million liters of industrial fuel.
They’ve lost ₱78 million in earnings, the Department of Agriculture assessed on August 7, as oil slicks covered parts of the water’s surface. 97 percent of the oil spill had already been contained by September, the Philippine Coast Guard said.