Adaptation and Mitigation to climate change

         1. One interesting example is that Philippines is rolling out educational things to educate the population about climate change, the dangers of it, and how it can be slowed down. Things like:
                        - Publication and dissemination of poster calenders on climate change and global warming.
                        - Organization and conduct of symposia focused group consultation and workshops. These                              were attended by representatives from the government and non-government organizations,                            private sector, and the academy.
                        - Conduct of exhibits on climate change.
               Another interesting change they are mitigating is that they are promoting a number of campaigns featuring energy efficiency and conservation by the Department of Energy. For example, they are rolling out the Power Patrol Program. This is "an energy information awareness and education program covering the residential, industrial, commercial and education sectors. It promotes efficiency in the electricity and gasoline fuel use of these sectors through the media." This is projected to reach 1 million households and counting more.

          2. One cool thing the continent Asia is doing is their outlook on improving their agriculture infrastructure. They are looking for improving the pasture water supply. This would increase the qualities of living in different areas. Also they are looking at more ways to improve use/store of rain and snow water. This would be great because water scarcity and water purification is a big issue in most parts of Asia.

          3. The Philippines has signed to accept the Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. They signed it on 15-Apr-1998. They accepted the ratification on 20-Nov-2003. And finally, they entered into force on 16-Feb-2005.

          4.  The Philippines has definitely toke a step to mitigate towards climate change. They have looked into ways to Alter applications of nutrients/fertilizers, insecticides, and pesticides. On the livestock production side, they have mitigated plant life. They are planting native grassland species; and also increasing plant coverage across the entire country. Lastly, mitigating towards violent storms and typhoons, they are improving sea defense and flood management. On top of that, they are also improving their information exchange system on new technologies at national as well as regional and international level.

          5. In my opinion, I think, not only the Philippines, but every country in this planet has a role and should take part in adapting and/ mitigating towards climate change, simply because of the fact that climate change is inevitable and affects the entire planet.

Kyoto Protocol

Climate Change Impacts

          It is actually quite interesting that the IPCC reports the southeast Asia has a "median change of about 7% in all seasons"; however, "the projected seasonal changes vary strongly within the region." (IPCC) This means that the IPCC is not going to be very accurate necessarily throughout the report for this part of southeast Asia. It is stating that there would be a consistent and a big increase in area precipitation near the ITCZ, over northern Indonesia. It's important that "the pattern is broadly one of wet seasons rainfall increase and dry season decrease." (IPCC) Personally, I think this would actually benefit the Philippines because it would increase precipitation to water crops and keep their wet crops alive for a longer time. Additionally, if they do not get as much intense hurricanes and severe weather, their agriculture business of the country would be making profit.

          With common sense, the glaciers melting from the Himalayas would most definitely increase flooding. Also, this would input way more freshwater sources into the ocean because of the melting of the glaciers. The IPCC reports that there would also be a decrease in freshwater sources because of the climate changing. This would greatly impact the increasing population, which in turn would require more fresh, clean water source. Would Philippines be affected? The IPCC also reports that "Coastal areas... will be at greatest risk due to increased flooding from the sea." (IPCC) Also, it is projected that crop yields in southeast Asia, where Philipines is at, could increase all the way up to 20%.

         
          IPCC reports that "The crop yield in many countries of Asia has declined, partly due to rising temperatures and extreme weather events." (IPCC) This change of climate is projected to decrease 5 to 30% in crop yields by 2050s. With this, "Freshwater availability is likely to decrease due to climate change... which could adversely affect more than a billion people by 2050s." Along with the sea level rising and temperature rising as well with Global Warming, the ocean's ecosystems is at very high risk of danger. Coral reefs risk high threats from this situation. On the other hand, coastal countries like Philippines could face potential sea level rise. The IPCC report has high confidence in this happening. This would majorly affect your crops and agriculture in land by introducing ocean water into freshwater lands. The IPCC reports "increases in coastal water temperature would exacerbate the abundance and/or toxicity of cholera in south Asia. (high confidence)." This would likely expand water borne diseases into inland.

        The most fascinating threat to Philippines in my opinion is the endangerment of the ocean's ecosystems and the sea level rising around Philippines. The ocean water temperature warming could cause major issues for certain species to be inhabitable in certain specific temperature. As seen in the picture below, you can spot that Philippines holds an area of danger for species to be endangered species. This is caused by water level rising and temperature rising over time. Another thing is the precipitation rising on top of sea level rising. Since the Philippines is already so close to the sea level, the country is very susceptible to sea level rising turning into flooding. This would make typhoons and/or other extreme events to be extra violent, causing even more flooding and damage to the country. Also, the saltwater from ocean intruding into crop lands and agriculture farms could cause harm into the agriculture business, which Philippines is greatly dependent on. These are the two threats I found most interesting about.

Climate Change Contribution

1. The Philippine's main sources of Carbon Dioxide emissions were from liquids, solids, and cement. These sources are not surprising at all. They were normal.
Also, the year the Philippines started emitting significant amount of carbon dioxide is 1982. There were the Asian adult games - which is similar to the Olympics. Therefore, that is probably the event that started to have a lot of travelers and tourism activities going on that year. On top of that, activities and carbon dioxide emissions will probably start from there which explains the carbon dioxide emissions spiking up.

2.  The highest of per capita CO2 emissions estimates for Philippines is 0.275. Compared to U.S's 4.9 metric tons of carbon, that is 0.06% of that. That is very little compared to the US. This is because the Philippines' population is much lower than US. Also, there is less urban areas in the Philippines than in the US.
The Philippines' ranking on per capita CO2 emissions is 156. Meanwhile, the rank of United States is 12.
As the blog author, I feel Philippines is doing very well in not releasing so much carbon dioxide emissions as a whole.

3. The Philippines is significantly and surprisingly low compared to some other countries on the graph. Historically, US and China and other countries have seen increasingly industrial development and human activities. Therefore, their carbon dioxide emissions are super high up there compared to Philippines.
In 2008, China was the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide according to the data and the graph above.
If the US has 312,000,000 people and China has 1,338,000,000 people, on per capita basis, an American citizen is more at fault for emitting carbon dioxide. Because on average, (if you do the math), an American contributes way more then a Chinese citizen. Philippines' cumulative contribution is 611,173 thousands metric tons of carbon emissions. USA's cumulative contribution is 94,225,770 thousands metric tons of carbon emissions. China's cumulative contribution is 36,152,061 thousands metric tons of carbon emissions. India's cumulative contribution is 10,229,326 thousands metric tons of carbon emissions. Therefore, USA is responsible for the most carbon dioxide emissions cumulatively. China cumulatively emits 38% of the US emissions. Also, India cumulatively emits 11% of the US emissions.

4.

The graph above shows the global emissions of carbon. Comparing this to the Keeling curve in #1, they are both definitely increasing; however, emission and concentration are two different concepts. As the globe emits more and more metric tons of carbon year by year, the curve of the concentration graph gradually increases as well. The concentration won't decrease because the Earth's carbon cycle does not make the carbon dioxide go away in our atmosphere as quickly as it emits carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Therefore, it will continue to increase. But the slope is the most important part because it represents the increase in emissions per year as well.