Climate change mitigation

Ike Señeres

IT is no longer possible to prevent climate change, but it is still possible to control it at a point that it no longer worsens. That is what the global summit in Paris is trying to do, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to a point that it will not go beyond a limit that would already make the damage irreversible. It may just be a matter of semantics, but there is a big difference between climate change adaptation and climate change mitigation. As I see it, adaptation sounds like a defeatist approach, as if we are already resigned to the fact that there is nothing that we could do about climate change except to adapt to it. I prefer mitigation as a more positive approach, somewhat akin to disaster risk mitigation.

Accepting adaptation as the only way is just like accepting safety nets as the only way to deal with globalization. As in a circus, safety nets are installed on the presumption that the trapeze artists would fall. In the case of globalization, our best way is to prepare to win, and not to prepare to fall. In climate change therefore, we should prepare to prevent any more damage, rather than prepare to just adapt. No one seems to be stressing the point, but there is actually a direct correlation between climate change and disaster risk. On one hand, there should be climate change mitigation. On the other hand, there should be disaster risk mitigation.

Climate change mitigation involves reducing greenhouse gases and increasing carbon sinks by way of reforestation. That is the simple mathematics of human survival. Scientists warn that once the tipping point of global warming is reached, climate change will become irreversible. That leaves us with some breathing space; because that means that it is still reversible as of now. That sounds easier said than done, but that does not mean that it is not doable. Going back to the simple mathematics, all we have to do really is to decrease the consumption of petroleum fuels and to increase the production of oxygen. Since the consumption of petroleum fuels boils down to the use of energy, the solution should be the utilization of renewable energy sources. The production of oxygen simply means restoring the natural forests, and not just simply planting trees.

Some countries have already set their own targets as to how much consumption of petroleum fuels they are going to reduce or to put it another way, how much volume of renewable energy they are going to utilize, both in terms of percentages. Some countries have also set targets as to how much of the natural forest cover they are going to restore, also based on percentages. As it is now, humankind does not really have any choice but to do the simple mathematics. The only way to reduce (subtraction) the percentage of using greenhouse gases is to increase (addition) the percentage of using renewable energy. The only way to reduce (subtraction) carbon dioxide is to increase (addition) oxygen.

I do not know if anyone has proposed it before, but I now propose that all of our provinces should be required to set their own percentage targets for increasing their percentage of renewable energy production (and consumption) on one hand, and increasing their percentage of reforestation (restoration of forest cover) on the other hand. The key towards implementing this idea is data gathering and data base management. At any given time, the provincial governments should know how much renewable energy they are already producing and consuming. They should also know how much of the natural (original) forest cover they are already able to restore.

It’s a long story to tell, but the more forest cover they are able to restore, the more they would be able to increase their disaster risk mitigation, at least in terms of rains and floods. Scientists are saying that the more forest cover is restored, the more rains will come. And even if more rains will come, lesser floods would come, because the trees in the mountains would be able to absorb the rainwater in their roots. Not only floods would be prevented, but soil erosion would also be prevented, thus reducing the risks of landslides. These two are just short term benefits, because the long term benefit really is for the trees to supply more water to the watersheds, waterways and aquifers.

There are actually more benefits to reforestation than meets the eye. Obviously, many of the trees in the forests would also supply food by way of fruits and other edible tree products. Aside from these, all of the trees could be trimmed to produce renewable energy by way of gasifier plants, also known as dendro thermal energy. Let us remember that we lost our natural forests because we were cutting trees without replanting new seedlings. We should no longer commit the same mistake. There is nothing wrong with cutting trees for as long as we keep growing new trees to replace those that we have cut. By the way, reforestation should also include the planting of mangroves in our shorelines, a smart thing to do because it will not only trigger a supply chain that will give us more seafood, but will also cool down the temperatures in the sea water thus also reducing global warming.

Going back to my proposal, the challenge of climate change mitigation should be subdivided to the provinces, leaving the tasks of overall management and monitoring to the national government. This is in line with the principle of subsidiarity, a principle that says that the biggest problems should be subdivided into the smallest manageable parts or delegated to the smallest productive units. Due to their size, the provinces would generally encompass huge areas that are in effect the same areas covered by the natural ecosystems. If actions at the provincial level are not enough, then the coordination could be elevated to the regional levels by way of the Regional Development Councils (RDCs), thus enabling the provinces to cover the broader ecosystems.

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