In pictures:
Typhoon Mawar threatens livelihoods and infrastructure in the Philippines
As global negotiations on loss and damage conclude their second session on 27 May, the Philippines’ most powerful storm of the year barrels toward northern provinces, affecting 11,000 people.
Eric Constantino, a 42 year-old fisherman, has not been able to go to work the entire week.
It is unwelcome downtime for locals like him who depend on fishing for their livelihood in the coastal towns of Cagayan in the Philippines.
“I have to resort to doing construction work if I can’t go out to fish. But because of the storm, we just have to rely on relief goods to meet our everyday needs. It has been like this for years,” said Constantino.
Philippine officials have banned fishing and sailing in the area on Monday, as Typhoon Mawar approached the country's northern provinces over the weekend.
Thousands of villagers have been evacuated, schools and offices have been shut down, displacing more than 11,000 people to shelters in Cagayan, Batanes and other provinces, according to the Office of Civil Defense.
An official from the Cagayan's Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office points to a landslide and flood susceptibility map in preparation for Typhoon Mawar. Image: Basilio Sepe/ Greenpeace
An official from the Cagayan's Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office points to a landslide and flood susceptibility map in preparation for Typhoon Mawar. Image: Basilio Sepe/ Greenpeace
While typhoons are a naturally occurring event when winds blow into areas of the ocean where the water is warm, there is growing scientific evidence that rapidly heating ocean waters due to the human-induced climate crisis are leading to more frequent and intense typhoons.
The Philippines, considered the most exposed country to typhoons in the world, faces an average of 20 storms annually that have caused major disruption to large parts of the archipelago repeatedly for years.
The Southeast Asian country is one of the developing states set to benefit from the global loss and damage fund that would help vulnerable countries recover from climate disasters.
Last year’s United Nations climate summit resulted in a breakthrough agreement to set up a fund to help climate vulnerable nations like the Philippines to cope with increasingly severe climate disasters.
"An ambitious and responsive loss and damage fund is crucial because countries like the Philippines, having contributed little to the climate crisis, can no longer cope ...massive losses and damages brought about by extreme weather events such as super typhoon Mawar."
- Claire Miranda, climate justice advocate, Asian Peoples Movement on Debt and Development
A worker sorts equipment as people prepare for the possible effects of Typhoon Mawar in the Task Force Lingkod Cagayan station in Lal-lo town, Cagayan province, north of Manila, Philippines.
A worker sorts equipment as people prepare for the possible effects of Typhoon Mawar in the Task Force Lingkod Cagayan station in Lal-lo town, Cagayan province, north of Manila, Philippines.
Residents brave the winds to ride a tricycle in Cagayan province. Image: Basilio Sepe/ Greenpeace
Residents brave the winds to ride a tricycle in Cagayan province. Image: Basilio Sepe/ Greenpeace
Dark clouds form over the horizon in Balesteros town, Cagayan province. Image: Basilio Sepe/ Greenpeace
Dark clouds form over the horizon in Balesteros town, Cagayan province. Image: Basilio Sepe/ Greenpeace
A local government offical prepares life vests in case of rescue operations in Cagayan province. Image: Basilio Sepe/ Greenpeace
A local government offical prepares life vests in case of rescue operations in Cagayan province. Image: Basilio Sepe/ Greenpeace
Children from an Indigenous peoples group play in an evacuation centre in Cagayan. Image: Basilio Sepe/ Greenpeace
Children from an Indigenous peoples group play in an evacuation centre in Cagayan. Image: Basilio Sepe/ Greenpeace
The “Transitional Committee” (TC), which was set up at the conference, held the second of four meetings from 25 to 27 May in the German city of Bonn, with a deadline for the 28th session of the Conference of Parties (COP28) climate talks at the end of this year. The meetings are meant to address the questions of how the fund will operate, who will pay, who will benefit and how it will be governed.
The session, however, did not arrive at concrete decisions about who will pay for loss and damage. But it did suggest that the recipients of funding would be all developing countries, said Claire Miranda, climate justice advocate at the Asian Peoples Movement on Debt and Development (APMDD), a regional alliance of 50 member organisations and movements.
Negotiators still have not agreed on sources of financing, with some wanting to bring in new arrangements outside of the loss and damage fund, while others assert that the fund, as part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that obliges rich countries to deliver pledges, must be the main mechanism to disburse funding, especially for immediate needs after extreme weather events, Miranda added.
"An ambitious and responsive loss and damage fund is crucial because countries like the Philippines, having contributed the least to the climate crisis can no longer cope, nor increase our resilience enough to combat the destructive impacts and the massive losses and damages brought about by extreme weather events such as super typhoon Mawar," she told Eco-Business.
“Without this, corporations will continue to defend and promote their runaway burning of fossil fuels without a legal framework to address loss and damage from climate change impacts.”
Over the past 14 years, the Philippines has witnessed 10 super typhoons. Climate impacts have caused estimated losses and damages amounting to about US$20 billion in a span of three decades, a 2021 report by the Asian Development Bank found.
The vulnerability of the Philippines and other typhoon-prone countries, underscores how wealthy nations and corporations must take responsibility for the climate crisis, said Jefferson Chua, campaigner for Greenpeace.
“A mechanism that ensures payment for climate loss and damage is necessary and urgent. Proposals that include far-reaching mechanisms to make the fossil fuel industry pay for loss and damage must be set out clearly ahead of COP28,” Chua told Eco-Business.
“Without this, corporations will continue to defend and promote their runaway burning of fossil fuels without a legal framework to address loss and damage from climate change impacts.”
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