While 2020 has been known as the year of the pandemic, for some populations, record high temperatures have made it “the year of fire.” Amid COVID-19, wildfires continued to destroy hectares upon hectares of land across the globe. In the Amazon alone, 2.2 million square kilometres of rainforest burned — that is over seven times the entire land area of the Philippines. In Australia, 57% of the population was affected by the bush fires that raged from 2019-2020. Summers that used to be anticipated are now met with fear. In February 2020 and closer to home, wildfires destroyed 900 hectares and an estimated 165,000 trees in Benguet, in the northern part of the Philippines. Wildfires have gone from contained events folded into nature’s cycle to uncontrollable catastrophes that wreak havoc on our lives, ecosystems, and economies.

The thick smoke emitted by these fires is enough to blind and choke anyone caught up in it. To add to that, more carbon dioxide is released into the air and more trees, which absorb the world’s carbon, are killed, creating a deadly vicious cycle. It cannot be denied that the climate crisis has an invisible yet steady hand in all of this. These fires are the result of human activity and are just an example of the larger devastation that the climate crisis can bring.

The climate crisis has urgently come upon us in recent years, but it is actually a result of just a few decades of accelerating carbon emissions from uncontrolled human activity. Since World War II, annual carbon dioxide emissions increased by over 750%, not including emissions from land use. It is our responsibility to address this problem before it is too late. We must act now, so that we can all see clear skies again and so future generations can look forward to summer once more.

As part of the FPH Group, we at the Energy Development Corporation remain hopeful and have made it our mission to forge collaborative pathways for a decarbonized and regenerative future.