Severe Tropical Storm Maring, the latest weather disturbance that hit the country, destroyed about P692 million worth of agricultural products, according to the Department of Agriculture. Over 32,000 farmers from the Cordillera Administrative Region, Ilocos Region, Cagayan Valley, Central Luzon, Bicol Region, and Western Visayas reported production losses, which reached 43,984 metric tons from 36,537 hectares of agricultural farms. Destroyed commodities include rice, corn, high value crops, livestock and fish.
Maring was not classified as a typhoon, but it brought unusually heavy rains, causing flash floods and landslides in northern Luzon and Palawan, leaving at least 13 people dead and 22 missing. Social-media posts described how residents of Cagayan, La Union, Ilocos Norte, Benguet, and nearby provinces spent a sleepless night on Monday as Severe Tropical Storm Maring battered Northern Luzon.
The adverse effects of climate change were observed in Baguio City when Maring dumped 625.5 millimeters of rain, more than a month’s worth, in a 24-hour period ending on Tuesday morning, according to the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration. It was more than the average rainfall of 454.3 mm that Baguio’s rainfall monitoring station gets for the whole month of October, based on Pagasa’s climate records over a 30-year period.
From npr.org: “Global warming is driving dangerous and disruptive flooding in underground rail systems around the world. Flooded tunnels and stations have disrupted service and stranded passengers in Boston, London, San Francisco, Taipei, Bangkok, Washington, D.C., and a host of other cities in recent years. But the problem has taken on added urgency this summer, with multiple, high-profile subway floods driven by summer rainstorms. Overnight, the remnants of Hurricane Ida flooded much of the New York City subway. Mayor Bill de Blasio issued a travel ban and warned residents to “stay off subways” as up to 10 inches of rain fell in some parts of the region in a matter of hours.”
Germany-based FloodList, a private group that monitors flood events from around the world, recorded 124 flood events across 385 locations in more than 20 countries in July. In an article the group published in August—Flood Risk Will Rise as Climate Heat Intensifies—FloodList said: “In a world of climate change, the flood risk will be more intense and more frequent, presenting higher danger to ever more people in a greater number of countries. In this century alone, the global population has increased by 18 percent. But the number of people exposed to damage and death by rising waters has increased by more than 34 percent.”
Developing countries, including the Philippines, were promised $100 billion a year in climate finance by rich countries more than a decade ago. However, data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development showed that climate finance reached only $80 billion in 2019. The COP 26 UN Climate Change Conference, hosted by the UK in partnership with Italy, which will take place from October 31 to November 12, 2021 in Glasgow, UK is the ideal forum where developing countries could remind the rich nations to fulfill their longstanding pledge to help poor countries cope with the effects of climate change.
Given our limited capacity to cope with climate extremes like severe flooding, we need the climate funding to help us address the adverse effects of climate change. As we wait for help to come, however, we should continue planting more trees that catch rainfall and help take water from the soil. But we need millions of them to make a real difference.