A major meeting of over 200
countries is taking place starting this week in Paris to grapple once more with
the modern plague that is climate change. With the overall failure of its
predecessor summit in Copenhagen back in 2009, this attempt to forge a strong
and definitive action to reduce global greenhouse gas emission is the core
agenda of the 2-week United Nations COP 21 meeting.
Palawan is an active participant in
an ongoing global campaign to put pressure on nations, specially the major
industrialized countries, to accept binding agreements. All over the world,
demonstrations are taking place to compel world leaders to take action.
With its own push to stop a planned
coal plant project, Palawan on Saturday launched it’s own #CleanEnergyPalawan
campaign with a solemn mass officiated by Bishop Pedro Arigo and Fr. Jasper
Lahan.
The Vatican’s encyclical on climate
change has thrust the powerful Catholic Church in the center of this campaign.
No less than Pope Francis has encouraged the faithful to join mass
demonstrations directed at the Paris talks.
Overall, the Philippines remains
stuck on its reliance to coal-fed energy, with over 40 percent of its
electricity supply coming from this technology acknowledged to be the most
pollutive of all energy sources. The current administration believes it has no
other practical options but to continue to depend on coal and hope for the best
while giving policy support to renewable energy development.
Palawan, with two ominous coal plant
facilities waiting in the pipeline, makes an interesting case because of the
province’s unique and globally popular stature and its inherent ability to draw
international attention. For the last three years, DMCI Powers Inc., a major
power company, has been struggling to put up its coal plants since winning a
contract from the local electric distribution franchise.
With a fast growing demand for
electricity, the island province had to decide where to source its electricity.
Interestingly enough at the conclusion of heated debates between civil society
and the provincial government which is DMCI’s biggest supporter, the province
adopted an energy masterplan essentially outsourced from an expert group of
volunteers which heavily promoted tapping renewable energy sources and
condemned coal as a strategically losing proposition.
DMCI’s coal plant is dead. No
one simply had done its obituary. If my Malacanang source is accurate as usual,
no less than President Aquino has tacitly weighted in against the Palawan coal
proposal. This is a development that had been preceded by intense campaigning
and capped by compelling factors including a categorical anti-coal position
taken by Sec. Ramon Jimenez of the Department of Tourism, according to my
source.
Late this week, the Palawan electric
cooperative awarded a major contract to a current power provider to increase
its generating capacity using bunker fuel. A pollutant no less, Delta P’s
bunker plant is a lesser evil replaceable by fast catching renewable sources
which have already broken ground. The development of at least three
run-of-river mini hydro power plants by another company is in the works and is
expected to start delivering power starting late next year.
The present configuration of power
supply and demand elements in Palawan virtually makes the proposed coal plant
redundant and unnecessary. DMCI recently managed to secure a supplemental
contract to build a 10-MW plant not fed by coal, an arrangement most likely
done to provide an exit window for its coal plant.
Palawan to the world is a paradise.
Conde Nast magazine said so when it’s influential magazine voted the province
as the best island in the world. Bio-physically speaking, it is indeed special.
It’s very high level of biological diversity makes a strong argument for
conservation to be a top priority.
The province is a hashtag on its own
for environmental protection. It was fairly easy for environmental activists
like Gina Lopez and the Palawan civil society to surpass the 10 million mark in
its signature campaign to stop mining in Palawan, a feat it recently reportedly
achieved.
When Palawan was sought to be
excluded from a pending legislation to strengthen the management regimes of
protected areas under NIPAS became a national issue, netizens all over came
down hard to bash the proponents of the suggestion.
In the context of the COP 21 talks,
Palawan makes a case that there are ways to address climate issues with real
solutions, given the realization that it is important to save earth’s best
island and earth itself for that matter.
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