More than half of the national territory is vulnerable to natural disasters and approximately 85 percent of GDP comes from areas at risk. This paper suggests that future reforms focus on further mainstreaming climate change risk management in national, local and sectoral decision-making processes, focusing on adaptation initiatives, in order to reduce vulnerability to and minimize the adverse impact of climate risk on development efforts. The Philippines is highly vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change, which increase the frequency and intensity of heat-waves, floods, droughts, typhoons; alter agricultural and coastal and marine ecosystem output and productivity; reduce water availability and quality; and increase the incidence of climate-sensitive infectious diseases. The poor are especially at risk from these impacts. Many live in naturally hazard prone areas and are dependant of natural resources for their livelihoods.
The main expected impacts of climate change will come as a result of climate variability― that is changes in precipitation, increase in temperature and sea level rise.In terms of sectoral impacts some of these include changes in agricultural yields for crops such as rice and maize. Changes in land use, as a consequence, of changes in rainfall pattern which will push people to migrate to higher elevations where soil is less fertile causing the rate of conversion of forest to agricultural lands to increase increasing greenhouse emissions. Coastal area resources (such as mangroves) and communities will be affected by sea level rises. Similarly, water resource availability is impacted by dramatic El Niño events, and infectious diseases may appear with more frequency. From the perspective of greenhouse emissions the Philippines is a minor emitter. However, emissions have been on the rise from both energy-use and land-use changes, with the latter as the major GHG contributor. As early as 1991 the Philippines began to respond to climate change through a series of policy and legal initiatives. Although it does not have any responsibility or commitment to reduce GHG emissions and is relatively a minor emitter, the Philippines, nevertheless, took an active role on the mitigation aspects of climate change especially in the application of the Clean Development Mechanism. In this sense, climate change has been seen as an opportunity for the Philippines’ to channel large-scale debit-for-equity programs to reforestation, clean water, irrigation and food production programs.
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