Since returning from master’s studies in London, I’ve worked on a few projects with different UN agencies, and got to immerse deeply with many communities in the process. I’m going to share some memories of my work in this post.
Characterizing informal settlements
In 2021, I became the National Researcher for UNDP’s Philippine study under the programme ‘Leaving No Migrants and Displaced Persons Behind: Integrated Development Approaches to Migration and Displacement among the Urban Poor in Asia and the Pacific.’ I immersed with four communities in Valenzuela City and Quezon City to study how we can characterize informal settlements, as framed by migration and displacement, sustainable livelihoods, resilience and climate change, and urban planning.
For the research, I reviewed international and national policies, as well as development reports to better understand the nexus of so many development themes. Focus group discussions (with communities, local government units, and the national government), validation meetings, and community immersion were all undertaken to characterize different contexts of informal settlements and migrant communities. There were so many learnings, from women’s roles in caring for communities to grassroots community planning and adaptation to climate impacts. While the research is unpublished, the study is meant to be used for further programming work in the country.
FGD in ValenzuelaFGD in Quezon CityCommunity visit in ValenzuelaValidating community sharing on mobilityFGD with a Barangay Council in ValenzuelaFGD in Quezon City(Note: I blurred the photos for the privacy of research participants and members of the community.)
Gender mainstreaming and climate change adaptation with civil society
Also in 2021, I became the National Consultant for UN Women’s Training of Trainers under the Empower Project. The ToT aimed to build capacities of civil society organizations working on climate change, resilience, and disaster management to better mainstream gender and development into their work.
We invited with 27 civil society organizations as participants for the ToT. I invited the UP Center for Women and Gender Studies, the Climate Change Commission, the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities, CARE Philippines, and the Climate Resiliency Field Schools and Climate Services (RWAN) to deliver lectures. These were about the national framework provisions on gender and climate change, gender mainstreaming in the project cycle (frameworks, tools, analysis and assessment, planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation), and cases of actual programs and projects in the country (agricultural sector, women in crisis and emergency response, and clean energy). It was thanks to our International Consultant in India who prepared the entire manual and training design that I was able to contextualize the training to the Philippine context.
Here’s a screen recording of the Padlet platform, where we uploaded all our ToT resources, from case studies to group exercises, from visual summaries to activities:
And here are the visual summaries of our event learnings:
Nexus of climate crisis and human mobility
As of 2022 — I am currently with the International Organization for Migration (IOM), tasked to write policy recommendations on the nexus of the climate crisis and human mobility. I am also tasked to lead community dialogues in project areas under the project ‘Climate Change Adaptation and Community Resilience in the Philippines’ or CARP. My communities are in Zamboanga City, Cotabato City, and Bulacan. I’m also supporting coordination with local governments across Luzon and Visayas for the project’s training component for next year. I’ll update this section as the work goes along.
Here are a couple of photos I took while going around coastal barangays in Zamboanga City two weeks ago:
To end, here’s a short thought and learning from my work — always be with people and communities and learn from their experiences and needs before conducting ‘planning,’ or writing and recommending ‘policy,’ or doing ‘development’ work.
Before leaving for London, The Guidon asked my take about the street vendor clearing that happened in the City of Manila a few months back, and I was glad to share insights on how we should understand the underappreciated value of informality in our cities.
Moving towards renewable energy takes more than a signature for the Paris Climate Agreement. It is affected by the way our cities shape our life, and how we choose to live.
How do we perceive our use of energy?
As an urban planner, I can talk land use, I can talk green spaces. But energy? The closest I can come to is that I switch on my lights, electric fan, and laptop everyday. I know I’m tired of breathing in car fumes during my ten-minute walk to the office. I read that the Larcen C glacier just cracked—a part of Antarctica, no matter how tiny, is breaking apart.
Environmentalists fuel the climate change fire with the “only one earth” messaging. The sea level rise, the pollution affecting our health, and rising temperatures—all of these are happening because of you, and because of me. And the rest of our human race family.
I would need some engineers to get my calculations on power usage running, and statisticians to correlate that to scientists’ environmental data. So let me talk about energy in the language I understand more: Through cities, and through people who shape them.
Now, I live in the rapidly growing metropolitan of Manila, where the recorded average commute time is 45.5 minutes, where malls are supersized, and where sprawl costs more than most of our population can afford.
When we talk about renewable energy, what scale do we consider? Image Source: Rappler
Imagine how energy is consumed within the 613.9 square kilometres of Metro Manila: All those millions hustling and bustling every single day to offices and back to their homes across city boundaries, burning fuel, hours, and productivity. Only a handful is conscious about how they leave iPhones charging and engines running.
Urban efficiency: How design and mobility affect energy consumption
I mentioned our malls are supersized. So are our skyways, and our ideals. Urban sprawl is eating up our available land faster than we care to notice. One may ask what this has to do with energy.
Using an urban planning perspective, it has everything to do with energy. This is a basic lesson of using up space. The goal is to make space efficient. In putting homes as close as possible to the school, grocery, church, and park, we are able to walk and lessen emissions by cars. Developers are not burdened with the costs of longer streets, while utility providers spend less on shorter water pipelines and power lines.
Concisely, the more efficient our space and environment, the smaller our energy consumption.
The impact of an urban fabric has much to do with our energy demand and supply. Image Sources: (Left) Pinterest and (Right) Urban Design Studies Unit (University of Strathclyde)
This is why the case of Metro Manila has too great a repercussion from urban inefficiency. Our destinations are too far apart. We take longer trips. We keep overscaling our cities, and we build grander spaces as we move towards global standards. The facades of our mega-sized malls and preference for cement over green spaces speak for themselves. Life as it is demands more energy for us to function.
Sourcing for the lifeline
The 2016 Philippine Power Situation Report provides a snapshot of how much energy we use up, and how suppliers cater to these needs. So far, what we know is that the residential and industrial sectors keep causing the continued increase of temperature and the need for more cooling equipment.
This just confirms how our growing number of homes create the demand, and how factories, which naturally co-locate to where we are, add to energy usage. Our food, clothing, basic necessities, and utilities become the very climate killers because we require them to be present.
Power sources in the Philippines. Image Source: 2016 Philippine Power Situation Report
One may think why coal and its family of fossil fuels continue to win, and why we haven’t made that stride towards renewable energy sources. This is despite the Renewable Energy Act of 2008, and our hypocritical signatures on the past how many United Nations Conventions, all of which aimed towards sustainable environments.
The pressing matter is how fast and how effective our baby steps carry us towards our future. It is almost a decade since Philippine legislation brought energy to the table. We have now added the Paris Agreement to our targets, and more importantly, our conscience.
But going back, is there genuine consciousness, especially at the neighbourhood—even household—scale, on our country’s energy situation? We have depended on our electric suppliers to make the move. How many of us have made the effort to harness renewable energy in our own ways? Let alone cut down our energy demand?
Thinking about it, how far down is energy in our personal priority list? With a poverty incidence of more than a quarter of all Filipinos, comprised mostly of farmers, fishermen and citizens belonging to the vulnerable demographic, would the common Filipino citizen be concerned about renewable energy over the food on his table? Would we actually campaign for shorter roads and less car usage when in the first place, we look to the government to solve this for us?
No. Installing solar panels would be the last thing on the minds of families who barely put enough together to eat rice. As life ticks by, the carbon footprint aggregates, mostly unchecked by those who contribute to it. Life becomes business as usual. Providers turn to cheaper energy because they have to cater to millions, and to lessen expenses by using the established means for distribution.
Joining the global response for renewable energy
Our cities, and our very selves—we’re all on a race against a carbon time bomb. Think: It’s not just us, it’s our neck on the line, but all of this? This is on us. The Earth’s pressure is upon every country right now to respond and get to the goal of living below 2 degrees Celsius.
Global neighbours have responded with policy: Norway is banning oil, and is banning petrol and diesel car sales. In the financing world, we have introduced climate budgets. Even the smallest product alternatives are being thrown out there by students and entrepreneurs. Just earlier this week I saw an ad for solar paint, which uses hydrogen fuel instead of fossil fuels.
Global and local initiatives to move towards the use of renewable energy spur innovation, policy, and financing strategies. Image Source: UP Materials Science Society, Hybrid Cars, Union of Concerned Scientists.
Sure, all of this is good, and competitive: Education and awareness, campaigns, slogans, all of these introductions and how-to’s for solar equipment, new charging stations, and the like. These efforts are innovative and commendable.
But we have to be strategic. The challenge is to create changes in energy demand and encourage renewable energy supply. The outcome in mind is to get to the lifestyle change of the 15 million in our metropolitan, and how many more millions in our cities, and billions more around the globe.
The strategy is to create synergies from all the efforts, systems from our disconnected networks, and mobility in everyday life. Change the city’s way of life, and move closer to one another. Through design, we achieve energy efficiency by creating nodes and using neighbourhood models. Through households, we measure our consumption and life impacts. Studies show how four actions create the biggest impact to reduce energy demand and in the bigger picture, lessen the carbon footprint: “eating more plants, avoiding air travel, living car-free, and having smaller families.”
Lifestyle change takes a while, but starting small isn’t so bad. After all, the energy problem clearly reflects how we have already been living in the biggest irony of humanity: We destroy so that we can live. Perhaps the planning lessons of mobility, biophilia, smarter systems, and the fact that people drive the life of a city tell us that nothing is really an externality. Everything we do, no matter how small, is connected with something much bigger than what we see, and what we choose to see.
Let me call on you to look at renewable energy beyond new technologies and beyond the pressure of climate agreements. Moving towards it takes our individual efforts to create substantial impacts, and that meaningful path towards saving the only home we have.
Jean Palma 
