Mike Mate

Mum always called it a ‘monkeys wedding’ when the rain fell down and the sun shone at the same time. Today there was one, and whilst it rained and shone I counted one hundred people walking in a line along the shore, towards the Climate Defenders Camp. There were men, women and children and they carried, in outstretched arms, plates of food. The procession looked so peaceful. But then it changed. As they passed the windsocks – that we’d erected in the morning (a symbol of the renewable alternative) – they tore them down. When they came to our banner ‘QUIT COAL’ they tore that down too. This was no picnic, no marriage of like minds. Our camp grew a crowd of chanting “yes to coal, yes to coal”. These where the workers of Panay Power Company and they’d been paid five-hundred pesos each to intimidate us. The police rushed in and stood by to watch. The protest protesters erected a fence of bamboo poles around the camp and then covered it with tarpaulins. They tried to hide our tower, block us out – but the climbers climbed higher.

We kept our position on day three to tell the world that Carbon dioxide (CO2) from coal-fired power plants is the main driver of climate change, representing a major portion of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.  Globally, coal accounts for 72% of carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector.  In the Philippines eight coal-fired power plants, with a total capacity of 4,177 MW, or about 26.1% of the country’s installed capacity, currently account for as much as 36% of the emissions from the energy sector.  However, nine more coal-fired plants are up for construction or expansion – one of them right were we are camped.