House OKs bill for climate change response

The House of Representatives has approved on third and final reading a bill that recognizes a climate change emergency and stresses the need for the government to come up with measures to stop human-caused global warming.

- DELON PORCALLA

On Wednesday, 238 congressmen voted to pass House Bill 9084 or the Climate Change Resilience Act, which intends to reduce the impact of climate change emergency and mobilize funds as well as efforts to mitigate disasters.

"We must acknowledge that there is a climate change emergency and take steps to stop or mitigate its effects. I support this bill, being one of those who witnessed the devastating effects of Super Typhoon Yolanda 10 years ago," Speaker Martin Romualdez said.

"May we never see such a tragedy again," Romualdez added.

Leyte's first district, where Tacloban - hometown of Romualdez - is located, was almost wiped out when Yolanda struck in November 2013, leaving thousands of people dead.

HB 9084 mandates the creation of a Climate Change Resiliency and Adaptability Program, which will develop and implement solutions to adapt and mitigate the adverse impacts of climate change.

The program's components include open sharing of data among stakeholders, probabilistic climate risk assessments (PCRA), multilevel national educational plan on climate resilience, link between health and climate change, critical services and ecosystem protection strategies.

"The PCRA will consider all possible sce os, likelihood and inherent uncertainties, associated impacts of climate change, and the climate change projections in extremes in consultation with collective strengthening for community awareness on natural disasters agencies," the measure states.