Negros celebrates Global Warming and Climate Change Consciousness Week
Negros Occidental (23 November) -- To further promote into the consciousness and create awareness on the issues of global warming and climate change, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo by virtue of Proclamation Number 1667 declared November 19 to 25 every year since 2008 as the "Global Warming and Climate Change Consciousness Week".
Through the proclamation, all government offices, agencies and instrumentalities including government owned and controlled corporations as well as the private sectors are enjoined to observe the event by conducting activities related to the proclamation that will avert the effects of global warming and promote government mitigation efforts.
As a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, the Philippine government is committed to set measures in place that will reduce carbon dioxide and other critical greenhouse gases, thus, creating the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Global Warming and Climate Change (OPACC) in August 2008.
Aside from the creation of OPACC, other government responses to climate change include the Biofuels Program, Republic Act 9637 or the Biofuels Act, Republic Act 9003 or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Program, Green Philippine Highways, Adaptation Measures to Mitigate Effects of Climate Change and the creation of Presidential Task Force on Climate Change by Administrative Order Number 171.
According to a paper presented by DENR Regional Office, the Philippines is one of the five most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change.
The major cause of global warming and climate change is the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) like carbon dioxide from the use of fossil fuels that run cars and factories, methane from garbage, agriculture, mining, among others, nitrous oxide from industries, and halocarbons from CFCs and other synthetic gases.
One of the simplest ways to keep carbon dioxide emission from reaching the atmosphere is to preserve and plant more trees. Trees, especially young and fast-growing ones, soak up a great deal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store carbon atoms in new wood.
A person's average carbon emission per year reaches 30-40 tons while one tree removes about one ton of carbon dioxide per year, therefore a person needs to plant 30 trees to remove the person's carbon debt for the year. (PIA/EAD) [top]
