The Philippines' climate. Ecological conversion in front of a warning of environmental degradation

The Philippines, and in particular its urban agglomerations (Manila, but not only), is characterized by innumerable social and environmental problems. These are largely due to recent history, from colonization onwards, to a socio-political system that has never found stability, but also to environmental impacts of the country's development, such as pronounced deforestation, massive urbanization and growth linked to the use of fossil fuels. In this framework, the role of climate is really important. The Philippines is located in a region of the globe strongly influenced by monsoons, which bring dry seasons (with frequent heat waves) alternating with wet ones with heavy rainfall. In addition, the region is often hit by typhoons, some of them very intense (super-typhoons), and the sea-level rise and storm surges associated with intense events cause severe flooding on the coasts of this archipelago. During recent decades, anthropogenic climate change has generally intensified all these phenomena, with even very serious consequences on territories that can often be considered fragile and on a very exposed population, in the countryside and on the coasts, but especially in urban centres. The environmental and social degradation we are witnessing in the Philippines certainly calls for systemic thinking like that of Pope Francis in his encyclical Laudato si' (Pope Francis 2015). It is a matter of adapting to a changed climate that will not return to the pre-industrial conditions, while at the same time strongly mitigating with a drastic reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. But here, as in the world's other fragile states, more than anything else there is a need for the developed countries, and the ones that created the problems related to climate change, to reach out to the Philippines with support of international cooperation to make the whole world a fair, more prosperous, safe and happy place to live. In this paper, I will attempt to describe the Philippines' climate and its recent changes, the impacts of these on the territories, the consequences on Philippine society, and the challenges of ecological conversion in this situation of environmental degradation.