Hottest

Welcome to a hotter world.

Last month was declared the hottest June on record – perhaps the hottest in several thousand years. According to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, last June’s average temperature was hotter by a “substantial margin” over the previous record set June 2019.

This is not a fluke. The same EU agency tells us the nine hottest Junes on record all happened over the past nine years.

This is not the peak. The hotter temperatures are due to climate change attributable to human activity. Climate change continues to worsen since all the world’s efforts have not slowed the emission of greenhouse gasses. Sooner than we expect, the world’s climate will exceed the threshold scientists believe will cause chaos in our ecosystem.

All the climate change conferences held every year have accomplished nothing to reverse this global trend. Despite earlier commitments, the industrial countries responsible for the bulk of emissions causing climate change have failed to put together the $100-billion annual financing assistance to help all countries reduce their carbon footprint.

In a word, there has been much talk and no resolute action.

We all seem to be hoping against the evidence that technology – the shift to renewable energy sources, electric vehicles and the development of carbon capturing devices – will save us. But the trends pushing climate change overshadow whatever new technologies can deliver in the foreseeable future.

We know what happens when climate warms beyond 1.5 degrees centigrade over pre-industrial levels. The polar ice caps will melt, raising sea levels. Glaciers will evaporate, threatening our fresh water sources. Extreme weather events will become even more severe.

We will hit the limit in as soon as four years. Ahead of it, we now see dramatic reductions of the ice caps, rapid ocean warming, severe flooding and murderous droughts/wildfires everywhere.

Any effective global action to reverse – or at least retard – global warming will be costly. For many developing countries, the cost of reducing our carbon footprint is simply beyond reach. For many industrial societies, the ones emitting the most greenhouse gasses, the cost is politically intolerable.

We all seem to be sitting idly while the calamity approaches, paralyzed by our present politics. It is easier to wage wars against each other, adding to the ecological destruction, than war against climate change. The latter effort requires a change in lifestyles no one appears prepared to undertake.

We have seen enough examples from human history about how slight weather changes brought down civilizations. The great Khmer empire that built the amazing Angkor Wat is believed to have been ended by the changing course of a river. The great centers of Mayan civilization in Central America were believed ended by prolonged drought.

In our time, climate change is a vastly more profound threat to the entire human race. It threatens the viability of the only planet we know we could inhabit. There is no Planet B.

Drought

This year, climate change for us will be magnified by the El Niño phenomenon characterized by the warming of the Pacific Ocean. The threat to us is no longer theoretical. It is imminent.

This week, the water level at the vital Angat Dam hit minimum operating level. As the rains usual this time of the year have not come, the authorities will have to make a decision over the next few days over the reduction of water volumes to be released from the reservoir. That decision will mean water rationing for the NCR and reduced irrigation for the surrounding agricultural areas.

It is bad enough that even with ample fresh water supplies, the NCR is already one of the least habitable urban areas in the world. It will be worse when water is rationed. The full brunt of the El Niño phenomenon will hit us about January next year. The next few months will be characterized by mounting misery for all of us trapped in this island with meager water impounding infrastructure.

It took us too long to put together the financing package and work through the opposition to begin work on the Kaliwa River dam.  Now that we need its supplemental water supply desperately, the dam remains half-built.

The only lesson we could draw from the Kaliwa River experience is to begin putting together the financing for the Kanan River project. We have no other option.

A few years ago, plans were being drawn to build water impounding infra in several areas. No major accomplishment relating to this has been reported. This will prove to be a major failure in governance.

Several provinces have now been identified as critical for lack of rainfall. That will have tremendous implications for our food supply. Many farms are now experiencing drought conditions.

Even our fishermen are feeling the impact of warming. We could experience declining fish supplies because the seas around us are becoming incapable of supporting marine life.

Add to all these the impact of ocean pollution, for which the Philippines is a major culprit. Our rivers are dead and our seas are dying while we debate about the appropriate slogan for our tourism campaign.

Since we are so fond of naming “czars” to lead this or that effort, it should be about time to name a “warming czar” to oversee efforts to deal with the dry conditions forthcoming over the next months. This overlord will be charged with managing the distribution of what remains in our reservoirs and lead in building new water impoundment facilities.