GREEN ARCHITRENDS : Creeping climate change

By Amado de Jesus
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Posted date: May 14, 2010

IF YOU HAVE BEEN ON THE PLANET for at least half a century now, you must be nostalgic for the
summers of your youth. It was not scorching hot as it is now. We flew kites in the noonday sun. We played
ball in the open field all afternoon. The grass remained green in this time of year even with just a little
watering. Today the leaves of some sensitive plants outside my house turn black if we fail to water them
for a day.

GHG or greenhouse gases seem to be the result of almost everything we do now. That is because almost
everything is an output of industrialization, urbanization and agriculture. Did you know that livestock in the
United States accounts for 18 percent of gas emissions? Ninety-five percent of methane released from a
cow comes from only burping and exhalation.

Carbon dioxide and methane are the main greenhouse gases. The former has accumulated in the
atmosphere for the last 200 years, trapping heat that we release. Methane is produced here mainly by the
rotting of garbage in dumpsites. It is 20 times more lethal than carbon dioxide.

As global warming continues, scientists say that we are dangerously marching toward the tipping point of
irreversible climate change. Today the level of GHG trapped in the atmosphere is 372 parts per million
(ppm). At 450 ppm we would be at the tipping point. That would mean 2 degrees centigrade increase in
global temperature. Ice caps would melt, and sea levels would rise by 6 to 7 meters. A seven-meter rise in
water will submerge Manila.

That hopefully is far away. But we are experiencing at present stronger storms, massive flooding and
severe droughts, signs of creeping climate change.

Response to climate change

In February 1995, as chairman of the Senate committee on environment then Sen. Heherson Alvarez,
now Secretary of the Climate Change Commission convened in Manila the first Asia-Pacific Leaders
Conference on Climate Change with the support of the United Nations.

In December 1997, 161 industrialized nations committed to reduce their GHG emissions by 5 percent
from 1990 levels in Kyoto, Japan.

In December 2009, we all watched as they were supposed to finalize a binding agreement on climate
change in Copenhagen.

In July 2009, President Arroyo signed Republic Act 9729, the Climate Change Act of 2009, for
mainstreaming climate change into government policy formulations, establishing the framework strategy
and program and creating the Climate Change Commission.

On April 23, 2010 a proposed framework strategy and program on Climate Change was submitted to
President Arroyo through Sec. H. Alvarez by 6 sectors: River Basins, Mitigation & Decarbonization, Green
Buildings, Food Production Systems, Coastal Systems and Disaster Risk Reduction.

Framework for green buildings

The United Architects of the Philippines, the Philippine Society of Ventilating, Heating and Air Conditioning
Engineers (Psvare), the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers
(Ashrae) Philippine Chapter, as authors of the Proposed Framework for Green Buildings, have committed
through the Climate Change Commission to set sustainable building rating standards.

On May 5, 2010 the Psvare launched a book titled 2010 Psvare Standard on Energy Efficient Buildings, in
order to advance and institutionalize energy efficiency and conservation in the built environment.

In our country, buildings consume 72 percent of electricity and they are responsible for 33 percent of
carbon dioxide emissions.

The full implementation of a new code for green buildings will help minimize GHG emissions by as much
as 2.4 million tons a year, according to Sec. Heherson Alvarez.