The road to hell is said to be paved with good intentions. In the case of climate activists, their good intentions paved, painted, and furnished it as well. It wouldn’t have been so bad if their annoying earnestness were limited to gluing themselves in public places. But the truth is that their alarmism can destroy lives and livelihood as well.
It also proceeds from bad premises: thus, the claim is made that climate change costs the Philippines around 1.2% of GDP growth, amounting to something like P506.1 billion from climate-related hazards in a 10-year span. The problem here is that climate activists are essentially resorting to a causal chain argument: not only are such losses allegedly caused by climate change but that such arise from man-made causes.
The point then is that — contrary to what has been normally touted by climate activists — the science is “not settled” as to the causes of climate change and, as such, the remedies to it cannot be definitively applied when ranged against the possible foreseen and unforeseen consequences that such measures could bring.
Thus, the fact previously given here in this column (“Climate change, climate fraud,” September 2023), considering that the Philippines contributes merely 0.35% share in fossil CO2 emissions (as of 2016), that “even if the Paris Agreement targets are met, it still wouldn’t mean much in terms of climate effects but humongously so in terms of economics. There is really no point in bankrupting Philippine business when doing so won’t even save the planet.”
Again, the biggest casualty, if the climate activists are to be followed, is our transportation sector, which has been dubbed as “the largest source of air pollution and energy-related Greenhouse gases (GHG) (34% of total GHG emissions) in the Philippines, whereby road transport is the largest contributor (with over 80%). In October 2015, the Philippines submitted their official conditional GHG mitigation target to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC), in which the Government stated an emission reduction target of 70% until 2030 with international support” (see transferproject.org).
However, note that the “Philippines, like many countries around the world, is facing skyrocketing food inflation due to supply issues and high fuel costs.” Furthermore, “Filipinos pay some of the highest electricity rates in Asia, behind only Japan and Singapore. Compared to its ASEAN neighbors, the country’s electricity is between 25% and 87.5% more expensive. And the rates keep increasing. For example, January 2023 marked the third consecutive month of electricity rate hikes. The trend continued throughout the year, with September being the latest month when electricity prices increased” (see “Why the Philippines is so vulnerable to food inflation,” Carnegie Endowment, July 2022; also “The Environmental Issues Surrounding San Miguel Corp. Are Deterring Investors,” energytracker.asia, Sept. 27, 2023).
The foregoing should thus make the demonization of fossil fuels highly eccentric. Inasmuch as energy plays a crucial role in keeping the Philippine economy afloat, to impose drastic changes without a viable and practical alternative is utterly imprudent.
Take the case, for example, of SMCGP. “SMC Global Power (SMCGP), SMC’s power generation business arm, [which] has a total capacity of 4.7 GW. Fossil fuels make up 87%, with hydropower at 12% and battery energy storage and peaking points at 1%.” Despite the obvious necessity of its operations, “over the years, SMC has faced opposition in many of its projects from frontline communities, civil society organizations, environmentalists and faith-based organizations. From the 2017 Break Free campaign against coal projects to protests from fisherfolk and farming communities in June 2023, SMC’s brand has been consistently associated with environmental disasters, facing strong public opposition and even violent protests.”
Which is precisely what energy commentator Alex Epstein, in his 2014 book, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, would likely label as misguided: “fossil fuels are easy to misunderstand and demonize, but they are absolutely good to use. And they absolutely need to be championed … Mankind’s use of fossil fuels is supremely virtuous — because human life is the standard of value and because using fossil fuels transforms our environment to make it wonderful for human life.”
Epstein addresses three myths: that fossil fuels are “dirty,” that fossil fuels are unsustainable and thus require a change to “renewable” solar and wind, and that fossil fuels are hurting the developing world.
But the truth, as Epstein points out, is that the environmental benefits of using fossil fuels far outweigh the risks. Fossil fuels don’t take a naturally clean environment and make it dirty; they take a naturally dirty environment and make it clean. They don’t take a naturally safe climate and make it dangerous; they take a naturally dangerous climate and make it safer.
Regarding so-called “renewable” energy, Epstein illustrates the intermittent nature of energy derived from the sun and wind, necessitating backup from a reliable (and cheaper) source of energy — usually fossil fuels.
And, finally, Epstein cogently argues that fossil fuels are the key to improving the quality of life for billions of people in the developing world. Withholding them would see access to clean water plummeting, critical medical machines like incubators becoming impossible to operate, and life expectancy dropping significantly. Thus, a call to “get off fossil fuels” is essentially a call to degrade the lives of innocent developing country people that merely want the same opportunities enjoyed in the West.
Jemy Gatdula read international law at the University of Cambridge and is a Philippine Judicial Academy lecturer for constitutional philosophy and jurisprudence.
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