The environment's going broke too

You don’t want your bank account and the environment to go broke. (Photo: TBR News Media)

A few weeks ago, we looked at how our environment’s deteriorating state isn't doing our finances any favors. It’s a little bit hard to make money when the world around us is either burning or drowning to death. 

Something seemingly inconsequential, like a factory worker who can’t come to work due to heat exhaustion, has significant ripple effects to supply chains. Or just take into account how much crops and other natural resources will be destroyed by heavy rainfall. What's more, work conditions have been getting worse while wages aren’t getting any better. 

With agriculture making up a sizable chunk of the Philippines’ GDP, Stefano Pagiola, World Bank senior environmental economist, urged that more effort needs to be directed towards protecting the country’s natural resources and the workers who take care of them. 

“It is affected directly by temperature changes and direct damage by typhoons. Because of climate change, productivity of many crops will decline. Rain-fed crops are most affected, such as rice, sugarcane, and maize,” Pagiola says.

The PH specialty

The World Bank said last Tuesday in the Philippines Country Climate Development Report that climate change in the country will most likely drop the gross domestic product (GDP) by as much as 13.6% by 2040. That is if both the government and private sectors don’t do anything to improve the situation. 

Ndiame Diop, World Bank Country Director for the Philippines, did say that the country is  “uniquely vulnerable” to climate change. He’s not wrong. Being a tropical country situated along the typhoon belt of the Pacific will of course add a couple of earthquakes, flash floods, volcanic eruptions, and insane levels of rainfall to our portfolio. And we pay for that dearly. The Department of Finance earlier revealed that in 2021, the Philippines spent around P506 billion due to losses and damages sustained from different natural disasters. 

What can the government do? For one thing, help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They already committed to doing so by 75% from 2020 to 2030.

Just from my POV, the traffic situation in the Philippines is world class garbage and thinking about all the hours spent burning through fuel and the amount of smoke that goes up in the air from just one highway alone is paralyzing. Just thinking about how to address that problem would be a great start. 

World Bank Lead Economist Souleymane Coulibaly states that “Mitigation measures could be associated with a positive impact on GDP if carbon tax revenues are used for investment. The GDP could increase by about 0.5% and generate about 80,000 jobs in 2040,”.

Paying our dues

As much as we might want to direct all the blame and responsibility to the government, the country’s population still has a massive part to play in all of this. 

I’m sure some of you guys have patted yourselves on the back by turning down a plastic bag in the grocery, refusing to get disposable utensils, buying a metal straw, and bringing around a hydro flask of water instead of getting a plastic bottle and claiming that you’ve done your part. Good for you. But that’s the bare minimum. 

Socioeconomic Planning Secretary and head of National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), Arsenio M. Balisacan urged that all hands need to be on deck to save the Philippines from completely breaking and going broke as a result. 

“The Philippines also has a running ecological deficit, wherein our ecological footprint goes beyond our area’s natural capacity. If we do not get our act right soon, more communities will be routinely displaced, more economic activities disrupted, and more agricultural systems devastated due to these extreme, climate change-induced weather conditions,” Balisacan says. 

I get it, not everyone can afford an electric vehicle and it is difficult to abstain from plugging in electronics. But there’s no denying the fact that climate change is something we should’ve all been worried about since at least a decade ago. Now with fears of recession, rising prices of goods, and scarcity of wage increases, you just might be forced to not only save your money, but the environment as well.