The world has not yet reached the point of no return on climate change, but the window for meaningful action is narrowing with every passing year, Filipino physicist and Manila Observatory Executive Director Fr. Jose Ramon “Jett” Villarin said Saturday, offering a message of cautious hope nearly two decades after his team’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning work on global warming.
Villarin, who shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former US Vice President Al Gore as part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, joined DZRH News program Special on Saturday on June 20 to assess where the world—and the Philippines—stand nearly 20 years after that global reckoning on climate change first captured the world’s attention.
“Gusto kong isipin at maniwala na may pag-asa pa, lalong-lalo na nasa simula pa lang tayo. 1.1, 1.2 degrees pa lang tayo, kaya may panahon pa para ibaba ito. ‘Wag sana tayong dumating doon sa point of no return,” Villarin said, describing the world’s current 1.1 to 1.2 degree Celsius temperature rise as early enough in the warming process to still reverse course.
Villarin said the science today carries far greater confidence than it did in 2007—questions that were once theoretical, such as whether doubling carbon dioxide levels would raise global temperatures, have since been confirmed through decades of accumulated data, particularly in the form of warming oceans that store vast amounts of heat not yet fully released.
Asked to assess the world’s pace of response using a highway analogy—comparing the ideal climate response to driving at a steady 70 kilometers per hour along EDSA—Villarin said progress has been real but uneven, slowed by political and economic forces that have turned what should be a straightforward scientific response into a contested issue.
“Medyo may naengkwentro tayong mga lubak. Hindi lang traffic, lubak. Hindi lang ito scientific problem. Hindi lang ito environmental problem. ‘Yung solusyon kasi ay tatama sa ekonomiya, tatama sa pulitika, kaya napupulitika,” Villarin said.
He pointed to the 2015 global agreement to cap warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius as a milestone of unified intent, even as powerful economies—some of the world’s largest emitters—have resisted full-throated acknowledgment of the climate crisis, and said recent geopolitical shocks, such as the spike in oil prices triggered by the conflict involving Iran, have repeatedly exposed the world’s continued dependence on fossil fuels.
On the Philippine front, Villarin did not spare the country’s own governance failures, pointing directly to corruption in flood control projects—meant to serve as a climate adaptation mechanism—as a heartbreaking misallocation of resources that should have gone toward communities that actually need protection from flooding.
Asked about a proposal that officials connected to anomalous flood control projects be permanently barred from holding public office, Villarin agreed with the underlying concern, saying resources that should reach communities in genuine need are instead being lost to corruption.
“Maraming resources ang ating gobyerno, at sana napupunta doon sa tunay na nangangailangan,” Villarin said.
Villarin declined to offer a specific worst-case temperature scenario for the Philippines by 2050, explaining that the scientific community deliberately moved away from framing catastrophic outcomes—once projected at 4 to 5 degrees Celsius—because fear-based messaging tends to paralyze rather than mobilize public action; instead, he said the more useful question is what remains achievable given current technology and the possibility of more enlightened leadership.
He said hope endures because the fight against climate change has always experienced setbacks and resurgences—much like the youth-led activism symbolized by climate advocate Greta Thunberg—and because falling costs for solar and wind power, now cheaper than coal-fired plants in many markets, are accelerating a global shift toward cleaner energy sources that no longer hinges solely on political will.
He closed with a call for a just energy transition that protects displaced workers and communities while reducing the country’s dependence on imported fuel, saying the Philippines’ abundant sun and wind resources represent an opportunity too valuable to squander—and that while he cannot say exactly when the shift will happen, he remains convinced that it will.
