Legarda to UN: ‘Don’t lose focus on climate change’

NEW YORK—Senator Loren Legarda delivered a speech in front of the United National General Assembly on the afternoon of Oct. 27 and urged world ministers to refocus attention on climate-related disasters amidst hype on the global financial crisis.

"Our challenge today lies in sustaining this strong focus on climate change, even as the world and country leaders tackle the financial crisis in the months and years ahead," Legarda said.

Top world ministers and policy-makers from 190 nations gathered at the UN Headquarters here for the plenary session of the Economic and Financial Committee of the UN General Assembly.

Legarda warned policy-makers and ministers that the awareness campaign waged for decades by environment advocates may be overshadowed by the current financial woes in the United States. In her speech, Legarda emphasized that the challenge for world leaders now should still include sustaining a "strong focus on climate change" and reducing "climate-related disasters more effectively."

"In this time of global financial crisis, there is a real risk that the newfound awareness and concern for climate change may be eclipsed by the startling plummet of the financial market," the senator said.

During a kapihan with the local media at the Philippine Consulate on Tuesday, Legarda emphasized her passion for environmental issues and its effects on the lives of Filipinos in general.

"I am unrelenting in talking about it because it has been my advocacy for the past two decades of my career," she said.

The senator flew to New York to report on the outcome of the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction Consultative Meeting with Parliamentarians, which she co-organized in Manila last October 17-18.

Participants from vulnerable countries discussed how disaster risk reduction may be adopted as a preferred tool for climate change adaptation.

The final output of the meeting is a document called The Manila Call for Action of Parliamentarians on Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation, which calls on governments to advance disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation at national and international levels and to make disaster risk reduction the primary tool for climate change adaptation at national and local levels.