REACTION PAPER

Reaction on Climate Change The Philippines has been considered as a highly vulnerable to current (natural disasters), as well as future climate-related risks due to its geographical location and physical characteristics. It lies along the Western Pacific Basin (a generator of climatic conditions such as monsoons, thunderstorms, Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone, typhoons, among others) making it a path of an average of 20 tropical cyclones annually, nine of which makes a landfall. Climate change is a change in the statistical properties of the climate system when considered over long periods of time. The term, however, sometimes used to refer specifically to climate change caused by human activity, as opposed to changes in climate that may have resulted as part of Earth's natural processes. The term climate change, hence, has become synonymous with global warming. Any scientist will acknowledge that earth’s climate has always been changing. Increasing emissions into the atmosphere of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (such as methane) have created the so-called “greenhouse effect,” leading to overall global warming. The intensity of solar radiation that correlates positively with global warming, provides alternative view to the carbon dioxide-greenhouse interpretation. Sea levels will rise by several meters by the end of the century, frequent violent storms will increase and more prolonged periods of drought will occur.
This phenomenon, however, have made the concerned agencies such as the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA), National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) and the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) to push for the procurement of disaster-related equipment and supplies and intensified its campaign on disaster preparedness in all parts of the region. Today, a lot of non-government agencies and private institutions are actively engaged in the climate change