President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau both recognized Sunday the necessity for nations to address the climate crisis, which they said resulted in the loss of lives and untold suffering.
In a bilateral meeting at the Sokha Hotel in Phnom Penh, President Marcos said there is a noticeable change in weather conditions, which regularly devastate communities in the Philippines.
“It was a very strange one because it was the very first one in our history where every single part of the country was affected by one typhoon,” President Marcos told his counterpart during the meeting, referring to Tropical Storm “Paeng” that recently battered the country.
“From up in the northern part, the northern island of Luzon, all the way down to the southern part of the Philippines. Everybody felt it and felt it badly,” the chief executive said.
The extreme weather condition became a source of great suffering for the people, Marcos said, noting the Philippines, unfortunately, has the dubious distinction of often being referred to as the “most vulnerable country to the effects of climate change.”
“This is ironic, as it has been pointed out many times, I think also by yourself, that we in fact are a carbon sink in our country,” Marcos noted.
“But nonetheless, this is how it developed and this is how it has evolved. We have to manage it and we have to deal with it so… these are the consequences of that neglect,” the Philippine leader said.
Canada, Trudeau said, has the same experience, pointing to the same outcome after the country was hit by recent hurricanes on the East Coast, forest fires, droughts and floods.
“Unfortunately over the past decade as we – as people still talk about global warming, rather than climate change, there are a number of Canadians who went around saying, ‘oh global warming that will be good for us…,'” Trudeau said.
“But they realized that it means more unpredictability and more consequences for everyone and people are now not arguing against the reality of climate change which is a big step. But we still have a lot of work, all of us, to do on taking the right action,” the Canadian PM said.
Trudeau also extended his sympathies to the Philippines following the devastation of Tropical Storm “Paeng” in Mindanao which resulted in casualties and damage to agriculture, properties, and infrastructure. #
