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NO
question about it: climate change is here and it’s real.
Those who say otherwise are merely contributing to noise
pollution, emitting hot air and turning themselves into
the best arguments for censorship or the death penalty.
But
seriously, when the United Nations came out with an
environmental report early this month, it sounded
suspiciously like yesterday’s news. According to the
report, human activity was the likely cause for global
warming, a truth that was never more obviously stated.
Fortunately, big business sat up and paid attention.
A day or
two after the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) released its report, large companies
talked about the weather in a manner that warmed the
hearts of many a fanatical tree-hugger, most of whom
find very little humor about the composting pits in
their backyards.
“Climate
change is a real phenomenon,” Ivo Menzinger, head of
Swiss Reinsurance’s Sustainability and Emerging Risk
Management team in Zurich, said in a recent Bloomberg
report. “It will not go away and requires action today.”
The same
report indicated why insurance companies, such as Swiss
Re, and American International Group, the world’s
largest, have begun to be concerned about climate
change.
After
all, if everyone continues to go their merry way and
emit more than their fair share of greenhouse
gases—Filipino politicians’ children joy-riding in their
SUVs—the sustainability and profitability of the
insurance industry will slowly be eroded.
Take it
from Peter Levene, Lloyd’s of London chairman. In an
interview last month at the World Economic Forum in
Davos,
Switzerland,
Levene said that climate change is “the No. 1 issue for
the world’s biggest insurance market because of the
unpredictability and cost of potential weather-related
claims.”
“In
2005, we paid out $6 billion for the hurricanes and it
was getting on for $60 billion for the industry, which
is unheard of. Last year [2004], nothing,” Levene said
in a report.
Moreover, the same report said that the two largest
property insurers in the United States, the world’s
biggest economy, share Levene’s observations and have
acted accordingly.
State
Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. and Allstate Corp.,
both based in Illinois, have trimmed down the number of
customers they insure on the East Coast and the Gulf
Coast to cut down risks incurred from hurricane losses.
While
not every insurance company has followed suit, they may
soon tread the same strategic path to lessen liability.
Insurers can choose to reduce coverage of
weather-related risks or increase premiums for including
them, spelling bad news for global commerce since such
moves will further boost costs of doing business.
But all
that is nothing, compared to what is considered as the
greatest threat currently facing humankind: inaction.
Thankfully, inaction—as a theoretical concept, a
practical reality, and a way of life—is something which
Filipinos are all too familiar with.
For
instance, very few among the Philippines’ 85 million
population expected their leaders to utter, let alone
undertake significant action the same week the IPCC
report was released.
Their
expectations, perhaps the lowest among Asians, were met.
Except
for the usual self-serving chatter of its members, both
the Philippine Congress and Senate remained awfully
quiet about climate change. Like the true selfish
traditional politicians most of them are, these
legislators also gave the cold shoulder to moves which
would help the country take advantage of clean energy,
abundant sources of which can be found all across the
archipelago.
Early
on, even without the least bit of national government
assistance, green groups, communities, and their
respective leaders have generated virtually carbon-free
energy from the wind and the sun years ago.
If
enacted, the renewable energy bill will not only support
similar initiatives across the country, it would go a
long way to help the nation attain energy
self-sufficiency by ensuring that a certain portion of
generated power would come from clean sources, not from
power plants which mostly use coal and diesel. Besides
being carbon intensive, these energy sources are bought
from abroad, making end-users hostage to price
fluctuations in the world market.
Once it
becomes law, the renewable energy bill will help the
country do away with such dependence.
Sadly,
the proposed law remains just that: a proposed law. By
choosing to miss a momentous occasion, such as this one,
our leaders have failed to take a significant, historic
step into making the Philippines’ future cleaner and
brighter.
“Anyone
who would continue to risk inaction on the basis of the
evidence presented here will one day in the history
books be considered irresponsible,” says UN Environment
Program director Achim Steiner during the report’s
release.
At least
we now know whom to blame. |
