Climate change to cut Philippines fish catch by 50%

Malaya Business Insight: The Philippines will have to prepare for a 50 percent drop in fish catch and the huge risks storms will have on informal settlements and coastal communities due to climate change.  The World Bank said that fish catch in southern Philippines will be cut by half  during the 2050s, due to warmer sea temperatures and ocean acidification.

“Many South East Asian countries are already taking concerted actions to address the impacts of climate change, but this report tells us that we need to do much more,” Axel van Trotsenburg, World Bank Vice President for East Asia and Pacific, said. “We need to both intensify and accelerate these actions to reduce the ever-increasing vulnerability of populations to climate risk, especially the poor and vulnerable,” he added.

The World Bank said that in the Philippines, the biggest risks are due to more severe impacts storms will have on informal settlements and coastal communities. “The Bank is working with the Government of the Philippines to enhance the country’s capacity to deal with climate impacts as well as help ensure its overall national public expenditure is appropriately targeted to deal with these challenges,” the World Bank said.

“Together with other development partners, the Bank is also helping in the preparations for priority projects that aim to improve flood management and resilience in Metro Manila,” it added....

Traditional boat building in the Philippines, shot by Paul Shaffner, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr,  under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license