THINGS are starting to heat up, literally, as record heat indexes soar across the country.

But this will not deter climate justice advocates from different civic and cause-oriented organizations from several areas of the country, as they gird themselves for a series of actions calling for the government to declare a climate emergency in the face of rising temperatures ang the continued use of fossil fuels to generate energy.

EARTH DAY. Taking a page from a viral app on social media where one can plot the provinces visited on a map, the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice released its version by highlighting the areas in the country where they are coordinating a series of actions for Earth Day. Graphics courtesy of PMCJ

From April 20 to 22, the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice (PMCJ) will be spearheading calls for action in communities across the country, braving the scorching heat to bring the message across.

Local climate advocacy group Youth for Climate Justice-Cagayan de Oro (Y4CJ-CdeO) has a call for action against the proposed expansion of the FDC Misamis, Inc. coal-fired power plant in Villanueva, Misamis Oriental.

“We don’t need additional pollution-causing sources of energy in Mindanao,” Lenin Amidala Corrales, Y4CJ- CdeO officer, said.

“We need the national government to instead fast-track the rehabilitation of the Agus Pulangi Hydropower Complex so that it can provide baseload electricity in Mindanao,” she added.

Corrales opined that switching to renewable sources of electricity should be a matter of political will, not of profit-based considerations.

On April 22, the Y4CJ-CDeO will be joining the coastal cleanup activity of the City Local Environment and Natural Resources Office (Clenro) along the Gusa coastal road.

This is the third Clenro activity the Y4CJ-CdeO has participated in, starting with last year's Earth Day mangrove planting activity in Punta, Bonbon of this city.

In a statement released by the PMCJ, it said: “As we approach Earth Day, we, alongside civil society organizations and communities greatly affected by climate catastrophe, call for the end of fossil fuels and greenhouse gases in pursuit of a world below 1.5° (Celcius).”

For additional information on climate change and the relevance of the 1.5°C goal, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published on its website “an IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty.”