Senator warns of high costs of climate change

MAKATI CITY, Jan. 26 - Sen. Loren Legarda today warned that unless the Philippines takes action, climate change would severely affect the Philippine economy, creating more poverty and drastically lowering its productivity.

In an address at the Asian Institute of Management here, Loren said that "If the Philippines will do nothing, climate related risks will create a 6 percent decline of our GDP (Gross Domestic Product) annually by 2010."

...She said that in 2008 the world suffered from 321 disasters which killed about a quarter of a million people and affected more than 200 million lives. The total economic cost was a stunning 180 billion US dollars, which is twice the average annual economic losses of the past seven years. The Asia and the Pacific bore the brunt, accounting for more than 80 percent of the global loss of life, said Loren, who is also the UN champion climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction in the Asia-Pacific region.

...Concerning ecosystems, the Millennium Ecosystem Report, released in 2005, found that 60% of ecosystem services - services that nature provides to sustain human life, are declining with some services like fisheries beyond repair, rued Loren. In the Philippines, forests and mangroves are fast disappearing, posing risks of greater floods and landslides. Senate of the Philippines