President Aquino Urges ASEAN Nations to Help Mitigate Impact of Climate Change

President Benigno S. Aquino III on Monday urged member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to work together to mitigate the impact of climate change.

Addressing some 2,000 delegates from 32 Asia-Pacific countries attending the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) – ASEAN International Conference on Tourism and Climate Change in Legazpi, Albay, President Aquino said that climate change should not be ignored.

“Climate change is real. It is a threat not simply to our industries or to our economies; it is a grave threat to all our peoples,” he said, citing Typhoon Yolanda, which he described as “unprecedented in scale”, affecting 44 of the country’s 81 provinces, claiming thousands of lives, and rendering many more homeless and without livelihood.

“We cannot ignore the resounding message that Typhoon Yolanda said to the world: If we do not tackle it head on, this ‘new normal’ brought about by climate change will be here to stay and we will be forced to make unfair choices between disaster risk management and development,” he warned.

He noted that each country must come up with a more focused and more organized strategy to adapt to the risks of climate change.

“This entails each country revisiting the way they approach every facet of governance to take into account how they affect the environment—from infrastructure, to agriculture, to energy. Needless to say, one of the sectors deeply concerned with the evolving demands of the new normal is tourism,” he continued.

The Chief Executive recounted how Donsol, Sorsogon, with the help of the Department of Tourism (DOT) and the Worldwide Fund for Nature, was able to capitalize on its whale sharks, locally known as “butanding,” to promote eco-tourism.

In less than five years, he said, Donsol went from a sixth-class municipality to a first-class municipality, with an annual income of P55 million.

He, however, noted that the long-term viability of such programs is tied to how the problem of climate change is dealt with.

Such efforts cannot come from just one country, he said, expressing hope that countries could continue to share ideas, new technologies and best practices through conferences like the UNWTO-ASEAN Conference on Tourism and Climate Change.

“Let us work even closer together; let us begin turning the situation around before it gets worse; and let us endeavor to leave behind a world still teeming with opportunities—one that is, without doubt, better than how we found it,” the President said.

Delegates to the five-day conference are expected to come up with measures that would strengthen the tourism sector’s ability to address the threats of climate change. (PNA) LAM/PND/AG/JB/UTB