Climate change survivors pay it forward
in PH and Pacific
TACLOBAN, 07 March 2022―Residents of Barangay San Agustin in Limasawa Island, Southern Leyte can now enjoy lighting and power after a community solar charging system was installed in their island town last week, two months after Typhoon Rai (Odette) devastated the island. Residents of Suva, the capital of Fiji, likewise received a similar set-up as Fijians trained by Supertyphoon Haiyan (Yolanda) survivors assembled and installed their own system last week.
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| RE-Serve Corps volunteers assisted in the installation of solar panels atop San Agustin Barangay Hall in San Vicente, Limasawa, Southern Leyte, 01 March 2022 | Photo by Kathleen Lei Limayo/350.org |
Fiji and the Philippines continue to face storms supercharged by warming seas and creeping climate impacts, but survivor communities are paying it forward by reaching out across the ocean to empower other survivors by lighting up communities across the Pacific.
Jude Capila Alona, a Solar Scholar from Palo,
installed the inverter for the solar charging system inside the barangay hall
of San Vicente, Limasawa, Southern Leyte, 01 March 2022. She helped build this
system which was also used during the online Solar Scholars training with 350
Pacific last February 22-24, 2022. | Photo by Kathleen Lei Limayo/350.org
ICSC launched the Solar
Scholars initiative in 2015 to enable community members, local government
officials, and civil society representatives to integrate renewable energy into
disaster risk reduction and community development programs. There are now over
400 Solar Scholars across the Philippines.
“We can accelerate the
energy transition in more islands by building new and far more locally
responsive renewable energy systems that are resilient to extreme weather
events and which can be maintained by community members themselves, especially
women. Inaction is everyone’s adversary today as we face the rapidly closing
window of opportunity to secure a future where our communities can thrive
despite the climate crisis,” said ICSC Associate for Community Resilience
Arturo Tahup.
“Solar Scholars and
community-led power systems help promote community leadership and ownership of
accessible, affordable, and sustainable renewable energy services. It’s been an
unmistakable joy to witness frontline communities in the Philippines working to
help enable their sisters and brothers in Fiji,” he added.
Apart from the online
mentoring and live technical training sessions, community Solar Scholars prepared
an instructional video by putting up a 200-watt solar charging system to help
their Fijian participants. Jude Capila Elona, a Solar Scholar and Typhoon
Haiyan survivor with a background in electrical engineering, helped assemble
the 200-watt charging system, which was then turned over to residents of
Limasawa Island. Fourteen barangay officials and workers, including eight
women, were trained to use and maintain the community solar charging system.
“Malaking tulong itong
solar charging systems lalo na sa mga maliliit na barangay at iyong iba na
malayo sa kuryente. Kung may disaster, kung may bagyo ulit, kung may ganitong
system, may pagkukunan na ng kuryente dito,” said Marie Ann Dagohoy-Kangleon,
head of Limasawa’s disaster risk reduction management office, during the
turnover of the solar charging system in Barangay San Agustin last March 1 to
2.
[These solar charging
systems are of great help especially for small communities and far flung areas
lacking access to electricity. With this system, we now have access to
electricity when the next storm hits.]
When typhoon Odette
hit, the National Power Corporation Small Utilities Group’s (Napocor-SPUG)
first solar-diesel hybrid plant that powered Limasawa incurred considerable
damages, resulting in an island-wide blackout. While electricity has been
restored in parts of barangays Cabulihan and Triana by the Southern Leyte
Electric Cooperative (Soleco), a bigger part of the island covering barangays
Magallanes, Lugsungan, San Francisco and San Agustin remain without power.
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| Volunteers carried parts of the solar charging system, which was transported from Tacloban City to Limasawa Island, Southern Leyte last 01 March 2022. This system was turned over to Barangay San Vicente whose residents continue to reel from the lack of electric supply after Super Typhoon Odette destroyed their solar-diesel hybrid plant and power lines, their only electric source, last December. | Photo by Kathleen Lei Limayo/350.org |
Fiji, an archipelagic
country in the South Pacific, has been hit by Category 5 storms in recent years―Cyclone
Winston in 2016, the deadliest in the country since 1979, and Cyclone Yasa in
2020, the most powerful storm recorded in the Pacific region that year. Most
recently, Cyclone Cody slammed Fiji in January 2022, taking the life of one
person and causing major flood damages and the evacuation of around 2,000
people.
“Over the years, as we
faced the same destruction in the face of intense cyclones, we've learned a lot
and we were able to equip ourselves. It has been a continuous phase of
rebuilding. This training has been a light at the end of the tunnel. We can
actually give hope to our people,” said 350 Pacific Organizer George Nacewa,
one of the new Solar Scholars in Fiji.
New
UN report
THE latest report launched by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is the contribution of
Working Group II (WG2) to the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), showed the
Philippines is projected to experience decreased agricultural and fisheries
productivity, major public health risks, climate-induced migration and
displacement, and decreasing but intensifying typhoons. The report also
identified socio-economic impacts of climate change, hitting marginalized
communities the hardest.
Limasawa Island is a
sixth-class municipality in Southern Leyte with over 6,000 residents across
1,364 households. Typhoon Odette struck the town in December 2021, claiming the
lives of 407 individuals and leaving at least 1,433 houses totally damaged.
As an island community,
the three main livelihoods of residents―fishing, coconut farming and tourism―were
also heavily impacted by typhoon Odette. Most of the fishing boats were washed
away or totally damaged. The local government estimates that around 80 to 90
percent of coconut trees were badly affected by the typhoon. Strong waves also
washed away half of the island’s Triana pier, a major point of entry for local
and foreign tourists.
Residents have observed
the loss of around five to ten meters in their coastline over the last 30
years, with sea levels during high tide now reaching settlements that
previously remained untouched. Limasawa’s case highlights risks associated with
slow onset impacts of climate change such as rising seas, which puts coastal
communities at high risk from surges brought by storms, leading to displacement
of residents.
The IPCC report
stressed the urgency of establishing actually resilient energy systems to “avoid
the risk of unsustainable energy growth in developing Asia,” a strategy that
“requires strategic planning consistent with long term climate projections,
impact and adaptation.”
ABOUT
The Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities is a Manila-based climate and energy policy group advancing climate resilience and low carbon development.
RE-Charge Pilipinas (RCP) is a post-typhoon Yolanda initiative that demonstrates the centrality of community-driven renewable energy innovation to achieving climate resiliency and inclusive low-carbon development in the Philippines. The RCP team works closely with women’s groups, local government units, volunteers, renewable energy providers, state colleges, researchers, and civil society groups. For more information, visit https://icsc.ngo/rcp/