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S.M.N.I. Truth That Matters

Mr. Glenn Penanggos, nice to see you again. Do you mind if I call you Glenn?

Thank you and welcome to Business and Politics. Thank you for making time.

Yes, thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

Well, climate change is a big topic. We say in our business that this is a running story.

Maybe can you give us an update on where the problem is now?

And then your field is science diplomacy. What is the role of science diplomacy in tackling that issue?

So where are we now first?

In terms of science diplomacy, by the way, in 2016 I created this particular program,

the Science Diplomacy Program for the ASEAN region.

So it's part of my activity as an honoree and as an awardee of the U.S. State Department.

So I told, in one of my activities, I told them I want to create a program that is very sustainable.

And that's the reason why I created the Science Diplomacy Program for the ASEAN region.

And what's the purpose of this?

The ASEAN Science Diplomacy Program is actually to train our outstanding scientists

and engineers of Southeast Asia on how science is going to be communicated

and how science is going to be used, going to be utilized by our policymakers and decision makers.

Because we have seen a lot of policies and laws,

and it's much better if science will be integrated to these policies.

And that's the reason why I created that program.

Now, our scientists, I don't want them to be siloed.

If you talk to the scientists, the scientists or the engineers will tell you,

oh, this is what we're going to do, these are our programs.

So very, very technical in nature.

But if you're a science diplomat, you want our science to be known.

We want our science to be useful to the different beneficiaries of the project,

the different partners.

We want them to embrace the importance of science.

And that's the reason why there is what we call Science Diplomacy Program.

I was a bit surprised, and forgive me for saying this,

because I've known you as a Harvard Kennedy School alumnus.

We know each other also because of the Philippine Council of Foreign Relations.

I know the diplomacy part.

I didn't realize your background was really chemical engineering.

So how did you get involved in this?

And what is the main thing that we should be looking at right now in terms of climate change?

Climate change, yes.

The Science Diplomacy Program can be used as a platform

to address the impacts and risks of climate change.

So in 2010, I created this program,

the Climate Smart Philippines Science for Service Program.

And part of what we do is to educate, to educate the different stakeholders.

So we have been traveling to different parts of the country,

different parts of Southeast Asia,

on how we're going to come up with the best projects and programs

that will really address the needs of our people.

And it's the purpose of Climate Smart Philippines.

So we have been traveling to Luzon, to Visayas, and Mindanao.

To be more specific, for example, Climate Smart Mindanao,

we have partnered with Mindanao Development Authority in 2016.

We partnered with them.

That was during the time of Secretary Alonto when he was still alive.

And part of the partnership is to train and capacitate all stakeholders,

the government agencies, the local government units.

Even the indigenous community, you say, right?

Yes, correct.

The academe, the different academe, the universities and colleges,

the civil society organizations, the non-government organizations,

the church leaders, the youth, the women,

the communities of farmers, fishermen, indigenous people,

and even the private sector.

So what is the purpose of that?

For example, in Davao, because Davao before has never,

I mean, has never experienced tropical cyclones.

But if you look at the changes right now,

they have been experiencing flooding,

they have been experiencing different types of climate hazards.

And that's the reason why we need to capacitate the entire region.

And part of that initiative and advocacy is to partner with Mindanao,

Mindanao Development Authority, because I told them,

you cannot just go to Mindanao and create programs there.

So you need to go to different government agencies

to help you to implement the program.

And that's the reason why we partnered with Mindanao.

So we started in 2016, and last year we had a renewal of the partnership

with Secretary Acosta.

And it was what? It was really great.

Because now we're not only concentrating on the climate change adaptation,

adaptation meaning assessing the risk and how we're going to manage the risk

and how it's going to be communicated to different stakeholders.

Now we're also integrating the climate change mitigation,

the net zero emissions.

Because this is about the Paris and Glasgow agreements.

So that's what we're also going to do.

This is what Minda or the Climate Smart Mindanao is focusing on.

We also want to reduce their GHG emissions.

I mean for the entire Mindanao.

Right. So I'll get into that in a minute,

but I'm just quite interested that you're doing this at the local and grassroots level.

Because when we talk about climate change, of course,

what I hear most often, global policy, right?

Because it affects the entire world.

And, of course, national policy.

I want to go back to that later,

but where are we now with the problem of climate change?

Because we're already seeing extreme weather events.

We're seeing in North America these uncontrolled wildfires.

You have intense typhoons with increasing frequency now in our part of the world.

Is it scientifically accurate to say that the problem is here?

Or are these simply just dismissible as weather events?

Yes, actually, yes.

In 2013, if you recall, Super Typhoon Haiyan.

Yes, New Orleanda.

240 kilometers per hour, Super Typhoon, a Category 5.

So many people died.

I mean more than thousands and thousands of people died.

Then we found out, because if you're a researcher, if you're a scientist,

you always want to make a difference.

You want to do it in a more scientific way.

And I told myself, I told my researchers,

why don't we do it in our own way?

So people are doing biophysical assessments, socioeconomic assessments.

Why don't we do it in such a way that we may be able to connect with the people there?

And now in our case, so we're not only focusing on the biophysical assessment.

The biophysical is, you want to know the changes.

For instance, how before...

To establish baselines.

Establish baselines, yes.

For example, when was the last time you experienced tropical cyclones?

How often do you experience tropical cyclones or flooding?

How are you going to compare them now?

The same thing with the socioeconomics.

So there's science to it rather than just hype about...

Yes, and there's also qualitative aspects of research.

Because if you're a science diplomat, like I mentioned, I'm going to connect now.

We're not only limiting ourselves to laboratory.

We don't just want to use our models to determine what's going to happen in the future.

What happened in the past, what is happening right now.

You actually have programs on the ground.

Yes, yes.

And what is going to happen in the future.

So what we do is we want to connect.

We want to establish that connection with the different people on the ground.

So we include the psychological impact assessment

because we want to know the level of stress, the depression of the people.

And the most important thing is the religiosity and spirituality.

The impact of what is the role of religion.

What is the role of spirituality and religiosity to make these people resilient.

So we started with that particular program.

And that's part of the social aspect or the qualitative aspect of research.

So it's the whole, the approach is not just the quantitative aspect using the models.

But you also want to validate these models with the actual experiences of the people.

Now are you doing this uniquely in the Philippines?

Or are you part of a global community that's sort of comparing notes

and working together on the methodologies and actual practices?

What's the case?

Yeah, we started with the Climate Smart Philippines.

And then we replicated that in Southeast Asia.

I see.

So from Climate Smart Philippines we have now we have the Climate Smart and the SASE resilient ASEAN.

I see.

So for the 10 ASEAN member states.

Simply because the climate hazards or the climate risk that is experienced with the Philippines

totally different from the different climate hazards that are also being experienced by the other ASEAN member states.

Yeah.

You know, one thing that I sometimes regret about media is that sometimes we simplify things, right?

Because of the need for a sound.

But I'm going to do it, which I hate to do.

But is it still avoidable, you know, the dreaded impact of climate change?

You know, there are some reports that say it's already here.

It's too late.

And that we simply adjust to it.

Or is there still something that we can do to prevent it or prevent the worst of it from happening?

Well, it's really cool, right?

My advice to that is it has to be done in a sectoral approach.

For example, if you talk about food security, then there are climate adaptation programs for that.

So if you talk about energy, so what are the mitigating measures?

What are different adaptation solutions for that?

So it's really very hard to do it, I mean, to approach it.

For example, the food, energy, water.

Because my advice would always be, okay, you have to address the problem in a sectoral manner.

I mean, per priority area.

So when you mentioned how are we going to address the impacts?

In the Philippines, we have the National Climate Change Action Plan, or the NCCAP.

And it has seven priority areas.

The food security, sustainable energy, water sufficiency, number four, human security.

Five, the ecological and environmental stability.

Number six, the climate smart and disaster resilient infrastructures and even services.

And number seven, the knowledge management and capacity building.

So how are we going to localize that so that people will understand the significance of the work?

That's what we do.

We travel to different parts of the country and we train them and capacitate them

and tell them and teach them how climate change is going to be addressed at the local level.

Yeah, I remember when Senator Legarda was campaigning, this was also an issue that was important to her.

And she was connecting climate change with poverty, right, because they're the most vulnerable.

Is that how you would maybe help people understand it or appreciate or do something about it?

Because it affects the most vulnerable in society, right?

Yes, when we started the program Climate Smart Philippines, we really started,

our focus was the agricultural sector.

Simply because the highest poverty incidence, they're either farmers or fisher folks.

That's right.

So every year, farmers and fisher folks.

That's the reason why a part of the advocacy, okay, they're rich, they know what they're going to do.

Correct.

If they are devastated, for instance, by extreme weather events.

But the poorer becomes poorer every time there is a disaster.

Our farmers, for instance, it will take some time before they can recover.

Because, for instance, the crop yield was devastated or was ruined by tropical cyclones or typhoons.

So something like that.

So that's what we do.

When we started with Climate Smart Philippines, the real focus was for the farmers and the fisher folks.

So if you look at some of our works, we're focusing on the agricultural sector, our farmers, fisher folks,

the most vulnerable sectors in the society.

And Telegram.