7,641 Reasons for Climate Action

The countdown to the permanent effects of climate change has begun. With every key climate indicator “flashing red,” the State of the Global Climate 2025 report highlights that the Earth is reaching a critical point, as extreme heat continues to accumulate in both the oceans and atmosphere. This shift is particularly impactful for countries like the Philippines, which are on the frontlines of climate change.

The United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres has urged for immediate global attention to this "energy imbalance," as the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirms that greenhouse gas concentrations have hit their highest levels in two million years. This atmospheric saturation is causing ocean temperatures to surge to record highs, triggering what experts warn are "irreversible" changes to the planet’s life-support systems. 

Figure 1. Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations over the Years 

With the climate now locked into a warming cycle, the UN cautions that the consequences from disappearing glaciers to rising sea levels are no longer temporary shifts, but disasters that will last for thousands of years.

Vital signs on the brink

The "flashing red" indicators cited by the UN are driven by five record-shattering metrics that have pushed the planet beyond its stable equilibrium. According to the WMO, these are the most alarming "vital signs" of the global climate:

• Carbon dioxide concentrations have hit 423.9 ppm, the highest in at least 800,000 years. This represents a 151% increase from pre-industrial levels, effectively locking in a warming effect that will last for generations.

• Over 91% of excess heat is being stored in the oceans, which reached a record heat content in 2025. The seas are now absorbing energy equivalent to 18 times the total annual energy used by all of humanity.

• Even with the cooling influence of a La Niña cycle, 2025 remained 1.43°C above pre-industrial levels, marking an extraordinary streak where each of the past 11 years has been among the warmest in human history.

• Global mean sea levels are 11 centimeters higher than in 1993. The rate of rise has more than doubled in the last decade, jumping from 2.13 mm per year to 4.77 mm per year.

• Glaciers lost an average of 1.3 meters of water equivalent in a single year. This represents an "exceptional" mass loss that the UN confirms is irreversible on a human timescale.

Frontline reality of the Philippines

The global "red alert" is a lived reality in the Philippines, where average temperatures have risen by approximately 1.2°C above pre-industrial levels. This shift is currently altering agro-climatic zones across the country, making traditional farming calendars obsolete as heat stress becomes the new baseline.

Figure 2. Projected Sea Level Rise of the Greater Manila Area

While the world watches global averages, the Philippine Sea is rising at a range of 5.7 to 7.0 mm per year, nearly double the global average of 3.7 mm. This accelerated surge poses an existential threat to the 70% of Filipino municipalities located along the coast, which are now battling permanent saltwater intrusion. 

This vulnerability is being exploited by a fundamental shift in storm behavior; scientists have found that the rate of super-typhoons hitting the Philippines has increased by more than 100% over the last two decades. The 2024–2025 seasons saw a clustering of six typhoons in 30 days, an event made 25% more frequent by human-induced warming. 

Last year, the country was plagued by another year of destructive storms, including super typhoons Nando, typhoon Tino, and super typhoon Uwan, which prompted a national state of emergency. ​The record-shattering ocean heat in the Pacific acts as a "thermal battery" for these storms, leading to some of the costliest seasons in Philippine history. 

With the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) warning of a 62% chance of El Niño returning by mid-2026, the current records are likely only a prelude to a more severe, long-term state of emergency.

Figure 3. The Philippines ranked first in the World Risk Index, while just emitting 0.55% share of global GHG emissions

The Philippines contributes just 0.55% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, yet it is officially the most disaster-prone country on Earth, topping the 2025 World Risk Index with a staggering risk score of 46.56. This disparity defines the current landscape of climate injustice, where a frontline nation pays a "carbon debt" it never incurred. 

The escalating frequency of super-typhoons and irreversible sea-level rise are not natural phenomena; they are the physical manifestations of a global economy that has prioritized industrial growth over the survival of the Global South. 

Polluters must pay

For a country where 60% of the population lives in low-lying coastal areas, climate justice is the literal difference between a resilient future and a permanent state of emergency.

​In a historic move for global climate litigation, a group of 103 Filipino survivors officially filed a claim in the UK Royal Court of Justice on December 9, 2025, against the fossil fuel giant Shell. 

Supported by Greenpeace Philippines and the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center (LRC), this is the first civil case to directly link specific deaths and property destruction in the Global South to the historical emissions of a company in the Global North. 

The lawsuit centers on the devastation of Super Typhoon Odette, drawing on a June 2025 attribution study which found that human-induced climate change has more than doubled the likelihood of such "compound" disaster events in the Philippines.

This legal push is grounded in the landmark findings of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) of the Philippines, which established that "Carbon Majors" have a clear legal obligation to respect human rights in a heating planet.

The survivors argue that Shell, which accounts for 2.04% of historical global emissions, is liable for damages because it continued to expand production despite knowing the catastrophic risks as early as the 1960s. 

The "flashing red" status of the planet is not a suggestion to moderate; it is a terminal warning that the window for incremental change has closed. For the Philippines, surviving this transition requires more than just reactive disaster management; it demands a fundamental restructuring of our national priorities toward climate sovereignty. 

This means moving beyond the cycle of international loans and instead enforcing the "polluter pays" principle to fund a rapid shift to renewable energy and the fortification of our 7,641 islands.

Current funding levels remain dangerously inadequate to meet this challenge. While the world celebrated the operationalization of the Loss and Damage Fund, the initial pledges of approximately $700 million cover less than 0.2% of the annual losses faced by developing nations. 

Domestically, although the Philippines has increased its climate budget, adaptation funding is projected to stay below 3% of GDP through 2026, leaving a multibillion-peso gap in essential sea walls, early warning systems, and resilient housing.

The time for bureaucratic delay has expired. True climate justice will only be achieved when the world’s largest emitters treat the US$3.5 billion in annual Philippine damages as a mandatory reparation rather than a charitable suggestion. But this is not merely a fight for a paycheck; it is a fight for the right to remain. 

With the Philippines holding the highest risk score globally, our survival is the ultimate litmus test for global humanity. If the world allows the Philippine archipelago to become a graveyard of "acceptable losses," it forfeits the moral right to lead. 

We are not a tragedy to be managed; we are a civilization to be saved. The choice is no longer between growth and the environment; it is between immediate, radical defiance of the status quo or the permanent loss of our coastal heritage.

Article: John David Parol

Graphics: Nicole Beverly Maniego