MANILA, Philippines — International conservation group World Wide Fund for Nature-Philippines (WWF-Philippines) Wednesday announced it will expand its baseline studies to analyze the current situation and help cities adapt to the effects of climate change.

WWF-Philippines said the study combines baseline data findings with stakeholder inputs from scenario-building exercises conducted per site and shall form the basis for each city’s localized adaptation strategy.

Since September 2010, WWF and Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) have been conducting intensive baseline studies to help Philippine cities adapt to climate change.

WWF and BPI’s Business Risk Assessment and Adaptation Study covers four cities – Davao, Cebu, Iloilo and Baguio – that are at risk from increased storms, floods, drought and other extreme climate events.

The group said more baseline studies may soon cover other Philippine cities to help them with appropriate climate change adaptation strategies.

“Climate change shall continue even if we stop all our carbon emissions Friday. It takes 40 years for its momentum to grind to a halt. Given this, what should we do?” WWF-Philippines climate change director Gia Ibay asked.

“The solution lies in Climate Adaptation – preparing for pronounced climate change effects by adjusting the way we run our businesses and live our lives,” she added.

For its part, BPI Foundation executive director Florendo Maranan said, “this (baseline study) is our way of helping partner communities adapt to the coming storm.”

“In one scenario, we see the country losing space, food and water. In another, we see our countrymen meeting climate change head-on,” Maranan added.

In 2009, WWF launched The Coral Triangle and Climate Change: Ecosystems, People and Societies at Risk, a report based on a thorough consideration of the climate biology, economics and social characteristics of the immediate environs of the Philippines, which showed how unchecked climate change will ultimately undermine and destroy local ecosystems and livelihoods.

WWF said the Philippines has one of the longest non-continuous coastlines in the world making it especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

It added that warming temperatures might push up to 30 percent of all known species into extinction.

The country is also situated within the typhoon belt and is vulnerable to increasingly-violent storms, it pointed out.

“Imagine the sea inexorably creeping inland to submerge farms and homes. Heavier droughts will suck our soil dry to desiccate our rice and sugarcane fields. Hotter days will drive people up mountain communities like Baguio,” WWF-Philippines vice chairperson and CEO Jose Ma. Lorenzo Tan said.

“Remember that even if you live in a climate-proof area – people from afflicted cities will run to you,” he added.