Philippines: Climate change commish launches Twin Phoenix Project
Cagayan de Oro City -- The Climate Change Commission in partnership with the United National Development Program and Australian Aid launched the Twin Phoenix Project or the “Enabling the Cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan to Cope with Climate Change” project here.
The project launching was graced by Mary Ann Lucille L. Sering, vice chairperson of CCC and Toshihiro Tanaka, UNDP country director. The local governments were represented by Mayor Lawrence LL. Cruz of Iligan and Vice-Mayor Ceasar Ian Acenas of Cagayan de Oro.
The project aims to assess the disaster vulnerabilities of the cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan, and the municipalities surrounding CdeO and Mandulog river basins in Mindanao, to geological, meteorological and meteorologically-induced hazards due to climate change.
It was conceptualized right after tropical storm Sendong caused the overflowing of the rivers in the said areas that greatly damaged properties as well as infrastructure and claimed thousands of lives.
According to Mayor Cruz, the project can help them in generating correct and integral information such as the characteristics of the hazards of calamities.
Vice-Mayor Acenas on the other hand said that having known the goals of the project, it is the local government's responsibility to be more sensitive to vulnerabilities and CCC can rely on them for the whole duration of the project.
Sering emphasized that the outputs are substantially local and their efforts are inclined to complement the initiatives of the local government in addressing climate change.
”We see the occurrence of extreme weather events in the future as a result of a rapidly changing climate. We should prepare our communities against these events by mainstreaming Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR)/Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) into relevant planning and decision-making process from the national to the city/municipality levels. We can’t fight nature but we can work with it,” he said.
The results of the assessment will provide the basis for priority mitigation actions like community-based and managed early warning systems, and integrated contingency planning and mobilization. The Project will also conduct massive information, education and campaign to raise the awareness of the general public on climate change and its impacts.
At the end of the launching, Mayor Cruz and Vice-Mayor Acenas signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Climate Change Commission stating their full support and localization of the project in the their respective cities. (RTP-PIA10)