LEGARDA TELLS WORLD LEGISLATORS: "ACT ON CLIMATE CHANGE"

Senator Loren Legarda appealed to the world's legislators who gathered in Paris Saturday (Nov. 22) to implement immediately effective policies on climate change to "reduce the damage and casualties caused by natural disasters."

Legarda spoke during the 8th Annual Conference of the Parliamentary Network and the World Bank (PnoWB) which was attended by 150 legislators and development leaders from 110 countries.

"Parliamentarians around the world especially in countries vulnerable to disasters should take a pro-active role in advancing disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation in order to protect lives and livelihood," Legarda told the legislators.

The PNoWB aims to fight global poverty, promote transparency and accountability in international development and offers a platform for policy dialogue between the World Bank and parliamentarians.

Legarda was a panelist for the session in Linking Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster risk Reduction.

In an address, Legarda stressed that disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation should be weaved together to protect people from disasters, especially those from developing countries such as the Philippines who are more vulnerable.

"Disasters have already claimed countless lives, brutally destroyed livelihoods and indiscriminately condemned whole sub-populations to perpetual and potentially inter-generational poverty traps," Legarda said in the conference session.

The panelists in the session, which was moderated by Thierry Cornillet, a member of the European Parliament, agreed that natural disasters "can set back decades of development overnight" and that "risk reduction is a first and fail-proof strategy for climate change adaptation."

Legarda linked poverty to natural disasters and explained that disasters can contribute to longer-term states of poverty by delaying development of poorer areas in the country.

The poverty assessment conducted by the World Bank in 2001 cited the rise in poverty level to 28 per cent due to the impact of El Nino.

Another World Bank study in 2004 reported that the economic impact of disasters totaled $500 million annually or about 4% of the gross domestic product.

The Philippine government has reported that economic losses and damages due to disasters dramatically rose to $1.6 billion in 2006. These losses were borne mostly by people in the rural areas where poverty is most prevalent.

Legarda urged legislators to strengthen their political commitment and develop a legal and institutional framework conducive to disaster risk reduction and provide an effective response to tackle climate change-induced disasters.

She recommended that the Hyogo Framework for Action be made into an internationally binding legal instrument. The Hyogo Framework for Action, which 168 countries adopted after the 2005 Asian Tsunami, seeks to build up the resilience of nations to disasters.

Legarda also reported on the Manila Call for Action, the main outcome of the parliamentary consultation of the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction held in Manila last month. The resolution stressed the need for advancing disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation by national legislations.

Legarda recently filed a resolution in the Philippine senate, inquiring into the compliance of the Philippine government to the Hyogo Framework for Action.

Other personalities who attended the conference in Paris were International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and World Bank president Robert B. Zoellick.

The conference was hosted by the French National Assembly and the French Government, France being the current country-president of the European Union.