“We know that technology based on the use of highly polluting fossil fuels – especially coal, but also oil and, to a lesser degree, gas – needs to be progressively replaced without delay… There is an urgent need to develop policies so that, in the next few years, the emission of carbon dioxide and other highly polluting gases can be drastically reduced, for example, substituting for fossil fuels and developing sources of renewable energy. Worldwide there is minimal access to clean and renewable energy. There is still a need to develop adequate storage technologies.”
(Pope Francis, Laudato Si’ (LS), 165 & 26. Emphasis added).
Urgent Appeal for Climate Justice!
The Catholic Church supports the protection of our common good and our common home. We believe that progress can be achieved by sustainable and climate-friendly means. Hence, the Diocese of San Carlos is in opposition with the planned 300-MW coal plant of San Miguel Corporation (SMC) Global. We strongly appeal to them to invest instead their capital in “developing sources of renewable energy” (LS, 26), ever mindful that — if we do not listen to the earnest appeal of the Holy Father, Pope Francis, as quoted above — the most vulnerable victims of such decision with irreversible consequences to our environment are the poorest people.
The call to care for people on the margins of society and our responsibility to care for the diversity of life on Earth, including the ecological systems that support life, are integral to the living out of our mission as followers of Christ for there is a close bond between concern for nature and justice for the poor. These should also inform our considerations on how we ought to invest our God-given resources. As committed disciples of the Lord, we are seriously challenged “to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” (LS, 49).
We need to point out the “double injustice of climate change” brought about by our lack of care for our common home — The poor who are more vulnerable to suffer the most from extreme weather events like floods, landslides and typhoons, increasing water scarcity, reductions in crop yields, and rising sea levels that impact coastal cities are the least responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions — for the fewer goods and services one consumes, the less greenhouse gas emissions one produces.
“What kind of world do we want to leave to those who come after us, to children who are now growing up?” (LS, 160)
Philippines lies sixth on the list of most vulnerable countries in the Global Climate Risk Index of 2018. The country recently experienced some of the strongest typhoons in history – Typhoons Yolanda, Lando and Ompong, to which we lost thousands of Filipino lives and billions worth of damaged properties. Negros felt the wrath of these disasters in terms of livelihood, human displacement and agricultural loss.
Our government acknowledged the need to eliminate fossil fuels and fast-track renewable energy through RA 9153. It also ratified the Paris Agreement last year. This aims to limit global temperature rise below 2°C through low carbon development, adaptation and mitigation.
Department of Energy’s Philippine Energy Plan 2012-2030 is aligned with national development directives and global policy frameworks on energy such as the UN Sustainable Energy for All Initiative and the APEC Green Growth Goals. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) wrote in its 700-page most important scientific report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C released last October 7, 2018 that we have just 12 years left to make immediate, massive and unprecedented changes to global energy infrastructure to limit global warming to moderate levels because failure to do so would mean rising sea levels, more devastating droughts and more damaging storms resulting to famine, disease, economic tolls, and refugee crises. Meeting this goal demands extraordinary transitions in transportation; in energy, land, and building infrastructure; and in industrial systems. It means reducing our current coal consumption by one-third. Therefore, approval of a coal project in Negros will absolutely be in disagreement with these contracts, goals and findings.
Would the Claimed Benefits of Coal far outweigh Its hidden Costs?
San Carlos City was recognized by United Nations as one of the most livable cities in the world. It is considered as the energy hub of the Philippines and Southeast Asia with its biofuel and solar energy, together with the entire Negros. Not only will a new coal plant stain these existing global recognitions and honors; it will pollute as well the commons (water, air, land), harm human health and downturn community resilience.
It is a human right to live in a clean, healthy and safe environment. All over the country, host communities of coal suffer from health crisis, including premature deaths attributed to currently operating power plants. Recorded attributable diseases are cerebrovascular disease, ischemic heart disease, chronic obstructive heart disease, lung cancer and lower respiratory infections. These are caused by toxic heavy metals present in coal ash.
Moreover, the issue of coal is a financial and economic issue. The coal-fired power plant will also deprive residents from enjoying clean and cheap energy from renewable resources.
Fossil fuels expedite climate change. And the impacts of climate change are costly – more than what our country could afford.
Prof. Myles Allen, from Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, UK, made this valuable observation:
“One of the key insights to emerge from physical climate science over the past decade is the longevity of fossil carbon emissions. Once we release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, its influence persists indefinitely, continuing to affect the weather and climate for thousands of years. So our emissions today will affect our great-greatgrandchildren, unless an intervening generation steps in and pumps that carbon dioxide back out of the atmosphere and ‘refossilizes’ it, a process that would be formidably costly and may not be feasible at all.”
Then he asked a very disturbing and hard question: “But how do we weigh our responsibilities to our distant descendants, who will undoubtedly be living in a very different world to our own, socially, economically and environmentally, against our responsibilities to the poor who are alive today? On an even broader scale, how do we value harm done to the present generation against harm done to the next generation and generations to come?”
Our Pastoral Challenge and Collective Response
We call on the local government of San Carlos City and the provincial government of Negros Occidental to disapprove any proposal or application of SMC Global or any company at all for a coal-fired power plant project. We encourage Negrosanons and local business industries to continue their real efforts towards a more sustainable and cleaner environment. As stewards of the Earth and as individuals with common needs, it is our duty to take care of our home and love our neighbors as we love ourselves.
Our country, as signatory to the Paris Agreement, should consistently pledge for a greener future. Our national and local government institutions must start addressing climate change issues with solutions-based approaches in accord with the agreement. Locally, as a community of faith concerned for the future of our planet and people, we recommend the following:
• Pledge to reduce emissions, in line with keeping the global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels; insist on rapid emissions reduction and peaking by 2030, in order to keep the 1.5°C limit within reach;
• Aim for 1.5°C, encouraging all efforts to reach this limit, which would mean more communities are protected, more people get to survive;
• Demand divestment in fossil fuels and transition to 100% renewables by 2050, and encourage our power sector in the business community to reinvest in renewables and alternative green solutions;
• Advocate the long-term adaptation goal to reduce the vulnerability and build the resilience of communities facing climate impacts, aware that many of our communities are vulnerable to climate related disasters;
• Commit to make San Carlos City an eco-sustainable city, rejecting profit-driven businesses in the guise of development (mining, coal-fired power plants, reclamation development, pollution causing factories and all others that can destroy our environment and communities);
• Involve our barangays for a better climate, for a better environment and for a better governance;
• Involve our communities, churches, schools, organizations and citizenry to be vigilant on environmental issues, promote integral environmental formation, and active mobilization for ecological engagement; and,
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