THE VIEW FROM RIZAL

One year before I was born, a British singer-songwriter penned and recorded a hit song.

The million-dollar single was titled, “It Never Rains in Southern California.”

It ruled the airwaves as part of the top 20 hits for more than a year.

The song was not about the weather in Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego counties. It was about the travails of an artist who “boarded a westbound 747” to pursue his dreams (probably in Hollywood), inspired by what he said were “talks of opportunities, TV breaks and movies.” It had a sad ending. He did not find what he was looking for.

I was young then, so I could not identify with the fate of the character in the song. However, it made me believe that it really “never rains in Southern California.” According to my relatives and friends who lived in that part of the United States, there was some truth to the title of that song. There was a time when that region had very little rain. It almost never rained in there.

That was until recent years. We recall being surprised by news last year that many parts of Los Angeles were ravaged by raging flood waters. It happened again in February and July this year. Times have changed, and so have climate patterns.

There was a time when people had the same impression about the climate situation in their respective hometowns in the Philippines. In Antipolo, for example, our elders said they have never seen “this much rain” and “we have never had floods.” How can this happen in a place with the kind of elevation that the Pilgrimage Capital of the Philippines has, they said.

As we mentioned in last week’s column, Antipolo is now looking to experts from the academe to help the city decipher the primary cause of the devastation that torrential monsoon rains triggered by Typhoon Enteng had brought about.

A number of theories as to the possible cause have been suggested by observers. Among them is the inability of the present infrastructure to cope with the unprecedented volume of water poured by the howler in the eastern portion of the country. As one meteorologist described the situation, Typhoon Carina brought more rain than Ondoy. While Typhoon Enteng’s rainfall was equivalent to a month dumped in a matter of four days.

There are other factors mentioned, such as “urbanization,” deforestation, and the mineral extraction activities being carried out in various portions of the Sierra Madre.

It may be safe to surmise that all of these factors may have contributed to the recent experience. We will need the help of experts to find out which one was primary – the one that had the most contribution to what happened.

One factor that we must not ignore is the reality of climate change.

As we had mentioned in the past, we are now experiencing first-hand the effects of climate change or global warming. According to an article posted by the international organization USAID, this phenomenon is happening in our country by way of more frequent extreme weather conditions, meaning, “the wet season is wetter,” and the “dry season is drier.” Part of its manifestation is exceptionally strong and destructive weather disturbances.

We are “highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change,” the USAID paper said. This is due to our high exposure to natural hazards, our dependence on climate-sensitive natural resources, and the fact that most of our major cities and the majority of our population are situated along our vast coastlines.
There is an international consensus that climate change or global warming is caused by what is called “greenhouse gas emissions.”

According to the same USAID study, in our country, more than half of greenhouse gas emissions come from the energy sector (power plants), followed by agriculture, industrial processes, waste, land-use change, and forestry. We looked at various studies available online and all of them rank power plants as the number one cause. By “power plants,” we believe these studies are referring to those that are run by coal and diesel.

There are things we can do to mitigate the effects of climate change. Most of these are beyond the capabilities of local governments. They require the power and will of the national government, cooperation within the international community, and participation of every human being.

It is consoling to note that the country’s power sector now appears to be taking decisive steps to reduce the Philippines’ dependence on traditional electricity generation technologies, namely, coal and diesel. We understand that companies in the power industry are aggressively expanding their portfolio of renewable power. We also found out that many of our big banks have already put in place the policy that they will no longer extend credit to the construction of new coal or diesel-fired power plants.

Rizal province has made a major contribution to this particular effort and direction. The province now hosts one of the country’s largest wind farms in the towns of Pililla and Tanay and an 80 megawatt-solar park in Baras.

Climate change is a force much bigger than us. If the emission of greenhouse gases continues unabated, we can only expect future weather disturbances to be worse. We can only do what we can, at this point.

(The author is the mayor of Antipolo City, former Rizal governor, DENR assistant secretary and LLDA general manager. Email: [email protected])