'Alarming' planet likely awaits today's teens in old age

"How old will you be in 2050?"

The question, initially posed by a young woman at the United Nations (UN) Climate Change Talks in 2009, was a cause for concern among high school students at the launch Wednesday of a report on children’s welfare.

The report describes climate change — along with severe pollution and loss of biodiversity — as "the most urgent and alarming threat to the environment."

The State of the World’s Children Report 2011, launched in Quezon City by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), focuses on adolescents and includes a chapter on the effects of climate change on the youth.

For 15-year-old Jessa Mae Ancor, a third year high school student of Commonwealth High School, the waist-level floods she experienced when typhoon Ondoy struck in September 2009 immediately came to mind. “Natatakot po ako kasi may posibilidad pong mangyari yon uli (I am afraid because there is a possibility it will happen again)," Ancor said in an interview with GMA News Online.

Another 15-year-old, third year high school student Marijoy Calimlim, pinned the blame on adults who exploit the environment. “Mas maganda po na maaga pa lang, matigil na ang ginagawa nila (It would be better at the earliest possible time to stop what they are doing)," Calimlim said.

The above question raised by a British woman in Bonn, Germany in 2009 “won a round of applause," according to the UNICEF report.

“By the following day, hundreds of people in Bonn were wearing T-shirts emblazoned with that question — including the Chair himself, who started the next day’s session stating that he would be 110 in 2050 but that his children then would be in their fifties," the report says.

Generally, a hot Philippines

The National Economic, Environment, and Development Study for Climate Change predicts generally higher temperatures in all regions of the Philippines by 2050. Published by the United Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2009, the report also predicts erratic seasons of rain.

Addressing the climate summit in Copenhagen in 2009, former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo raised the alarm on the effects of climate change in the Philippines. “In fact we top the list of nations most in danger of facing more frequent and more intense storms when the impact of climate change intensifies," Arroyo said.

The UNICEF report says the current generation of teenagers will bear the brunt of climate change. “Adolescents will be harder hit than adults simply because 88 percent of them live in developing countries, which are projected to suffer disproportionately from the effects of rising global average temperatures," the report explains.

The report adds that “knowledge and opportunity" are key to long-term protection and stewardship of the environment.

A suggestion raised by the Department of Environment and National Resources is for school publications to put up a "green page" dedicated to reporting on the environment.