PGMA UNFIT FOR CLIMATE TALKS

December 3, 2009

PGMA UNFIT FOR CLIMATE TALKS

As countries prepare for the Conference of Parties (COP) 15 under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), an international organization was aghast to know that no less than President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (PGMA) will be heading the Philippine delegation in Copenhagen on December 7 to 18.

“How can PGMA head the Philippine delegation?” asked Merci Ferrer, Executive Director of Health Care Without Harm-Southeast Asia (HCWH). “And how can she negotiate for our future when she in fact is guilty of adding up to the burgeoning problems of climate change by impounding billions of meritorious health allocations?”

In 2008 alone, P2.32 billion health allocations from the General Appropriations Act (1) remain unreleased by the government. Earlier in a petition addressed to PGMA, 1,200 individuals and organizations from Argentina, India, Kenya, other Latin American countries, Mexico, Nepal, South Africa, Uganda, and United States (2) demanded the release of these appropriations.

“Public health issue has been a missing link in this climate change debate. Leaders around the world, for years, talk about the damage to agriculture, infrastructure, food security and economic activities but fail to look at the effect to people’s health,” said Ferrer. “It is only now that we are recognizing the health risks posed by global climate change.”

The Lancet, one of the world’s best-known and most respected general medical journals, reported that climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century.

“Unfortunately, PGMA is not one of those enlightened leaders who see the connection as evidenced in the wanton impoundment of budget for both health and the environment.”

Health and Climate
“The connection is very clear,” Ferrer pointed out.

Reports say that the world is the warmest it has been in the last 12,000 years as a result of warming over the past 30 years. (3) The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts a 1.4 0 C to 5.8 0 C rise in temperature by 2100.

“Global warming causes drought, famine, extreme temperature, floods… in different parts of the globe. We need not look far to see the health risks brought by the typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng,” Ferrer pointed out.

In the Asia-Pacific region, El Nino and La Nina events have affected the occurrence of dengue fever outbreaks. Countless examples show the emergence and recurrence of diseases brought by climate change. (4)

Dhaka, Manila and Jakarta were named by the World Wide Fund for Nature as the Asian cities most vulnerable to climate change.

Children at risk
Children are again at risk in this climate change issue.

The World Health Organization (WHO) reports startling effects to children’s health. According to the report, over 5 million children per year die from illnesses and other conditions caused by the environment in which they live, learn and play. While around 2 million children under five die every year from acute respiratory infections. The infections are aggravated by environment hazards such as indoor air pollution.

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said that two thirds of all preventable ill health due to the environment occurs in children.

“Climate change is here and we cannot risk our chance with an unfit delegation head.”

Doctors on Climate Change
Meanwhile, the Philippine College of Physicians (PCP)-Southern Luzon chapter expressed support to the Prescription for Healthy Hospitals, an initiative of HCWH which aims to reduce the health sector’s climate footprint.

PCP is the umbrella organization of internists in the Philippines.

HCWH is an international coalition of more than 470 organizations in 52 countries, working to transform the health care sector worldwide, without compromising patient safety or care, so that it is ecologically sustainable and no longer a source of harm to public health and the environment. For more information on HCWH-Southeast Asia, see www.noharm.org.ph.

Sonia G. Astudillo, +63 918 9182369, sonia@hcwh.org / Merci Ferrer, + 63 920 9056113, merci@hcwh.org

Notes:
(1) Impounded health budget includes P100 million for the purchase of autoclave machines for infectious medical waste treatment, P400 million for tuberculosis program and P1.82 billion for family health.

(2) Signatories include public health specialist and Executive Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR)-Kenya Dr. Paul Saoke and PSR-San Francisco Bay Area President Dr Robert M. Gould, Institute for Zero Waste in Africa- South Africa National Coordinator Muna Lakhani, Desmond D’Sa of the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance in South Africa, Rico Euripidou of groundwork-Friends of the Earth-Africa, Uganda Network on Toxic Free Malaria Control Sec-Gen Ellady Muyambi and Pro-biodiversity Conservationist in Uganda Coordinator Robert Tumwesigye Baganda, Director of Centro de Analisis y Accion en Toxicos y sus Alternativas (CAATA) in Mexico Fernando G. Bejarano, Cecilia Allen of Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives-Latin America, Institute for Sustainable Future-US Executive Director Jamie Harvie and Green Guide for Health Care’s Janet Brown, Center for Public Health and Environmental Development-Nepal Executive Director Ram Charita Sah, Aquene Freechild of the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal, and HCWH Boston Regional Director Bill Ravensi, HCWH Co Executive Director Anna Gillmore-Hall and HCWH International Team Coordinator Josh Karliner.

(3) Global Temperature Change,”by James Hansen et al, PNAS 2006 103: 14288-14293.

(4) a) Inter-annual variations in climatic and environmental conditions in Austria affect outbreaks of Ross River virus disease. (b) Increase in malaria in the eastern African highlands is associated with local warming. (c) Tick-borne encephalitis in Sweden has reportedly increased in response to succession of warmer winters over two decades. (d) Changes in the intensity of the El Nino cycle and its frequency have been accompanied by a strengthening of the relation between the cycle and cholera outbreaks in Bangladesh. (e) Studies in South Asia and South America documented the association of malaria outbreaks with the ENSO cycle.