It is going to be an extraordinary Mother Earth Day celebration this Friday, April 22.
UN Secretary General Ban Kee Moon has invited world leaders to converge that day in the United Nations for the signing ceremony of the climate agreement reached in December last year. It was in Paris that “the 196 parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change reached a historic agreement to combat climate change that will spur actions and investment towards a low-carbon, resilient and sustainable future. It is the first agreement that joins all nations in a common cause based on their historic, current and future responsibilities.”
(https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2016/01/world-leaders-invited-to-paris-agreement-signing-ceremony-on-april-22)
President Aquino should take time off from his hectic schedule and be among the first to sign. His presence at the United Nations sends a strong message that extremely vulnerable nations to the severe impacts of climate change, such as the Philippines, need the collective wisdom and action of the global community to swing towards the long-overdue transition to low-carbon governance and lifestyle.
It is also one of the last acts of his presidency that may as well be an act of atonement for the approval of the biggest number of coal power plants ever under any administration. Coal is the single biggest source of polluting carbon dioxide emission.
The political authorities, and more specifically Cebu’s, with the province, various cities, municipalities and barangays now palpably hit by water crisis, drought, increasingly high heat index, and coastal erosion, should connect the dots and let go of the painful love affair with coal.
Burning coal and their product, the coal ash, impact our health and our environment, undoubtedly. Industries that pollute, increase greenhouse concentration in the atmosphere and destroy the health of both people and ecosystems are in direct collision course with our strong legal framework for the maintenance of a healthful and balanced ecology. It should not be forgotten that environmental right is a guaranteed right and a duty mandated by no less than the 1987 Constitution and by various laws.
Republic Act 7638 which created the Department of Energy clearly limits its discretion to “formulate policies for the planning and implementation of a comprehensive program for the efficient supply and economical use of energy consistent with the approved national economic plan and with the policies on environmental protection and conservation and maintenance of ecological balance.”
Why the prevailing bias towards coal and not renewable energy when each increase in the global emission of carbon puts us in harm’s way? Why the rather slow implementation of the Renewable Energy Law, when we have the statutory framework for it? Why the continuing failure of governmental agencies to implement the Climate Change Act and the Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Law?
It should be emphasized that the 1993 Oposa trust doctrine (Minors vs. Factoran, G.R. No. 10108, July 30, 1993) where minors are recognized the right to sue for their future, is now reverberating in the courts of foreign jurisdiction as well.
In Oregon, Federal District Court Magistrate Judge Thomas Coffin ruled on April 8 that the lawsuit of 21 youngsters and world-renowned climatologist, Dr. James Hansen, which alleges the government violated the constitutional rights of the next generation by allowing the pollution that has caused climate change, can move forward, after fossil fuel companies and the federal government filed a motion to dismiss. They “won a major decision in their efforts to sue the federal government over climate change.”
“Filed in August, the complaint alleges that the US government has known for half a century that greenhouse gasses from fossil fuels cause global warming and climate change.
“If the allegations in the complaint are to be believed, the failure to regulate the emissions has resulted in a danger of constitutional proportions to the public health,” Coffin wrote. (https://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/04/10/3768092/climate-trust-suit-moves-forward)
Under our very own Oposa Ruling, the Court through its ponente, Hilario Davide, Jr. declared that “Petitioners minors assert that they represent their generation as well as generations yet unborn. We find no difficulty in ruling that they can, for themselves, for others of their generation and for the succeeding generations, file a class suit. Their personality to sue in behalf of the succeeding generations can only be based on the concept of intergenerational responsibility insofar as the right to a balanced and healthful ecology is concerned. Such a right, as hereinafter expounded, considers the “rhythm and harmony of nature.” … Such rhythm and harmony indispensably include, inter alia, the judicious disposition, utilization, management, renewal and conservation of the country’s forest, mineral, land, waters, fisheries, wildlife, off-shore areas and other natural resources to the end that their exploration, development and utilization be equitably accessible to the present as well as future generations.
Needless to say, every generation has a responsibility to the next to preserve that rhythm and harmony for the full enjoyment of a balanced and healthful ecology. Put a little differently, the minors’ assertion of their right to a sound environment constitutes, at the same time, the performance of their obligation to ensure the protection of that right for the generations to come.”
Will government authorities prefer to wait for a suit, including by minors, to compel them to uphold and respect the people’s guaranteed right, and an intergenerational responsibility, to a balanced and healthful ecology, which includes our land, air, water, and climate system?