Ein Jahr ist seit den UN-Klimaverhandlungen in Durban vergangen, bei den Zwischenverhandlungen in Bonn (Mai 2012) und Bangkok (September) konnte das Tempo zur Erreichung eines ambitionierten Abkommens nicht wirklich erhöht werden.
Durch meine Reise nach Palawan (westphilippinische Insel) bis Mitte November sind die Eindrücke über die gestiegenen Risiken und Verletzlichkeit der lokalen Bevölkerung durch den Klimawandel sehr lebendig. Die philippinischen Partner von Brot für die Welt – Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst haben zum Abschluss eines Trainingsseminars zu 'Participatory Assessment of Climate and Disaster Risks' eine Abschlusserklärung (s. nachfolgender Text) verfasst. Wird es gelingen, den Stimmen dieser PartnerInnen Gehör zu verschaffen? Täglich reisen mehr Regierungsbeamte, BeraterInnen und NRO-VertreterInnen zur COP18 an. Können Sie Ihrer Verantwortung gerecht werden? Werden sich neue Allianzen bilden? Die langen Flure im Qatar National Convention Center (http://www.qatarconvention.com/visitor/photo-gallery) bieten jedenfalls genügend Raum für ungestörte Gespräche!
Let us make efforts that lead to Climate Justice!
We, the Philippine partners of Bread for the World (Brot für die Welt – Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst) gathered for a training seminar on Participatory Assessment of Climate and Disaster Risks sponsored by Bread for the World and Bread for All on 5-9 November 2012 at Villa Esperanza, Quezon, Palawan, for studying, sharing information and reflection and to collectively express that
we are concerned about the global warming due to continuing high carbon emissions . Rising temperatures and unpredictable changing weather greatly affect the lives and sources of livelihood of people, especially those in poor countries. In the Philippine context, the changing climate has caused vulnerability to players engaged in agriculture and food security, biodiversity of forest and marine resources and human health. Inputs shared by resource persons revealed that climate change has weakened national food security because most agricultural farms in the country depend on rain-fed crops but the rainfall patterns changed and the frequency of strong tropical typhoons damaged crops. This lead to significantly decreased farm yields.
We are alarmed that in spite of our government's adherence to international agreements on climate change and the creation of agencies relative to the implementation of laws and policies on climate change, we are still witnesses to the number of deaths and severe damages to lives and properties of our people during disasters like Typhoon Sendong – due to inaction, delayed response, insufficient funds and low capability to handle and manage disaster risk reduction. More so, the government favored actions towards big businesses that plunder and destroy our environment such as mineral extraction and disastrous energy development like coal-fired power plants. This manifests the government’s bias towards huge profit at the expense of the environment that we "borrowed" from future generations.
We call on our colleagues and partners to exert all efforts to promote sustainable community development and to integrate in our respective programs appropriate plans and measures to protect the environment and to implement projects that will enable the people to mitigate and adapt climate change.
We urge the provincial government of Palawan to STOP THE CONSTRUCTION OF COAL-FIRED POWER PLANTS IN PALAWAN!
We demand the Philippine government to stop mineral extraction activities by scrapping the Mining Act of 1995, to cease the implementation of environment-disastrous energy developments such as coal-fired power plants in other parts of the country as well as to guarantee the protection of the environment and human rights defenders. We strongly demand from the rich countries which are signatories to UNFCCC like EU, US, and other ANNEX 1 countries to make concrete and meaningful steps to achieve emission reduction targets to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius.
Signed on 9th November 2012 at Quezon, Palawan.
