By ANTHONY IAN CRUZ
The Philippines has topped the list of countries "hardest
hit" by climate change in 2006, according to environmental group GermanWatch in
its Global Climate Risk Index (GCRI) 2008 released in Bali, Indonesia this week.
Sven Harmeling, author of the report, said that "storms and
flooding in the Philippines and Indonesia claimed the lives of nearly 1,300
people and caused damage into the billions of dollars."
Rounding up the 10 "worst-impacted" are North Korea, Vietnam,
Ethiopia, India, China, Afghanistan, the United States and Romania. The study
also claims that climate change events are impairing the capacities of countries
to end poverty in the long run.
GermanWatch said that GCRI rated and ranked countries based
on four indicators, namely, total number of deaths, deaths per 100,000
inhabitants, absolute losses in purchasing power parities, and losses per unit
of the gross domestic product in percent.
The study found that in 2006, 953 disasters killing 12,422
persons and resulting in losses of $47.670-billion, with the deaths and losses
mostly sustained by developing countries.
Of the figure, 25 disasters hit the Philippines, resulting in
513 deaths and in economic losses worth $4.45-billion, up from the average
$584-million in the 1987-2006 period. Philippine economic losses due to climate
change were almost 10 percent of the world total. A total of 8.5 million
Filipinos were adversely affected by the events, the study said.
Highly-destructive typhoons Milenyo and Reming hit the country in 2006.
While other countries sustained more deaths, the study found
they were few compared to their national populations, and that their economies
were not as severely compromised.
GermanWatch explained that "extreme weather events are
generally expected to increase in frequency and intensity due to global climate
change" and warned that "they have the potential to significantly undermine
progress towards the achievement of Millennium Development Goals".
"Extreme events can cause economic losses that are sometimes
twice as high as the annual GDP of a country, as in Somalia and Seychelles in
2004, limiting the available means to invest into measures that contribute to
the achievement of MDGs," said the group.
The study also noted that floodings also cause to the spread
of diseases, and the destruction of hundreds of thousands of hectares of
agricultural land, affecting anti-poverty and anti-hunger initiatives.
GermanWatch suggests that countries causing climate change,
mostly developed countries like the US, contribute to setting up of new
financing institutions that enables developed countries that suffer the brunt of
events to effectively meet the needs of the most vulnerable people.
In countries like the Philippines, which suffer from typhoons
and floods, GreenWatch suggested the following: improved drainage, development
and promotion of alternative crops, adjustment of planting and harvesting
schedules, and improved extension services. It also recommended, among others,
enhanced implementation of protection measures including flood forecasting and
warning, zoning, legislated rural and urban planning, promotion of insurance,
relocation of vulnerable assets, early warning systems, disaster-preparedness
planning and effective emergency relief measures.
The group said that it also used analyses by the Munich
Reinsurance, the world’s second-largest reinsurance firm, and released it in
time for a United Nations climate change conference in Bali attended by
government delegates, scientists and environmentalists from nearly 190
countries.
The Bali meeting, which ends Friday, seeks to lay the
groundwork for a new global efforts to combat climate change after the Kyoto
Protocol expires in 2012 According to Peter Hoeppe of Munich Reinsurance’s
Geo-Risks Research Department, the number of weather-related disasters has
doubled since 1980 and the frequency of flooding and other weather extremes,
such as heat waves and droughts, have risen fourfold.
"This clearly shows an increasing danger," Hoeppe said, adding that
industrialized countries, as the primary producers of the greenhouse gases,
which cause global warming, bear responsibility for helping the affected
nations.
