Editor's note: This is the second in a series of our year beginners.

The victory of Barack Obama in the 2008 US presidential polls ushered in fresh hopes for a greener world.

Environmental advocates greeted his ascent to power with cheers, as Obama’s triumph presaged bigger chances of America, and hopefully other countries, nailing a commitment to cut its carbon emission and come up with a clear plan of action against climate change.

Former environment Secretary Heherson Alvarez and now presidential adviser on global warming and climate change said that this is just what the Philippines need, as 2009 signals promising times for fresh global commitments to limit carbon emission.

 “There is an emerging direction… Obama would not just influence America, a dragon in carbon emission, to go for renewable energy. I think his leadership would change it for the world,” he said. 

Obama and Vice President Joe Biden vowed to “re-engage” with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) and lead a forum with the world’s top carbon emitters.     

Antonio La Vina, former environment undersecretary and climate-change expert, shared others’ hopes that the 2009 forecast on winning the fight against climate change, at a global scope, is more than encouraging. “The US elected a president who gave the most ambitious climate-change position among developed countries,” he said.

But he stressed that “there is no guarantee that it would push local bodies to be progressive. What we have here is a problem of leadership and institutions.”   

How Obama’s staunch call for the United States to turn around from its negative stance on capping carbon emission will affect the Philippines will be seen in significant terms in the Copenhagen Conference scheduled in 2009.  

The conference will test yet again the sincerity of governments all over the world to diminish dependence on fossil fuels and to develop renewable energy. Leaders from 170 countries are expected to sign the Copenhagen Protocol, which would replace the Kyoto Protocol.

Green lobbying

The Kyoto Protocol, introduced in 1992, stipulates that industrialized countries decrease their greenhouse gas levels by five percent from 2008-2012. While over 180 countries have ratified the protocol, it was snubbed by US, the culprit behind the largest carbon discharge in the world.

“The performance of the Kyoto Protocol was inferior,” Alvarez told Abs-cbnnews.com/Newsbreak.

The US refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol for it reportedly went soft on emerging economies China and India, which have also contributed to the increase in greenhouse gases in the last decade.

This conflict resulted in such “inferior” output, which could prove dismal for developing countries such as the Philippines, for as Alvarez puts it, “we are the victims here.”  

While the activities of first-world nations have spurred global warming, third-world countries are expected to suffer the effects of climate change, which range from drought to desertification to death.    
 
The next year for the Philippines would then be a period of intense lobbying for the adoption of the Copenhagen Protocol. “We would point out to them [developed countries] that we are a highly vulnerable area,” Alvarez said.

The lobbying should have started last December 2008 in the UN Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland, where Alvarez pledged to support “progressive proposals and global efforts in cutting carbon emission.”  

‘Get act together’ 
   
On the other hand, local government officials, civil society, and the Catholic Church linked arms in a Congress against carbon emission before 2008 ended. The Congress resulted in a declaration versus climate change, which was initially adopted last November 20. 

The movement was boosted by Pres. Proclamation No. 1667, which declared Nov. 19-25 as Global Warming and Climate Change Awareness Week.

All eyes are on the next steps of the Congress next year and how would they fare given the mushrooming of government initiatives against climate change.

Alvarez is the third official tasked to undertake mitigation strategies against climate change. DENR Secretary Lito Atienza heads the Inter-Agency Committee on Climate Change, which was formed at the time of former President Corazon Aquino, while Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes chairs the Presidential Task Force on Climate Change (PTFCC), established in 2007.

But the fate of these bodies hangs in the balance once the Senate approves the proposal for the creation of the Climate Change Commission, a brainchild of Sen. Loren Legarda.

The Climate Change Commission, which would be placed under the Office of the President, would be the “sole policy-making body” for government programs and action plans on climate change.

This would result in the abolition of the IACCC and the PTFCC.   

But while Legarda’s proposal is still pending in the Senate, local scientists and environmental advocates have issued calls for the three existing bodies to work cohesively.

“They should get their act together,” La Viña said.