Kiera McGuire
Features Editor
On Wednesday, Oct. 30, Lean Lecture Hall opened its doors for students, faculty and community members to hear the story of climate justice advocate Marinel Ubaldo, a survivor of super-typhoon Haiyan. The lecture, titled “Navigating Climate Migration: Understanding the Human Impact of Climate Change,” furthered the College’s discussion of environmental issues. Other events this semester have included the Ebert Art Center’s exhibits of climate change and light pollution impacts told through art.
Brian Webb, director of sustainability at the College, opened the lecture with a brief introduction of Marinel Ubaldo, who recently graduated from Duke University with a master’s degree in environmental management. Ubaldo grew up in the Philippines and was impacted by climate change from an early age — experiencing climate change firsthand through issues like devastation of farmland and loss of fish communities.
“My playground was a beach, was a mountain,” Ubaldo said when sharing her childhood experiences with the audience. On Nov. 8, 2013, super-typhoon Haiyan broke land in the Philippines and caused massive destruction, panic and fear of future climate-related disasters. After super-typhoon Haiyan, her community’s “world collapsed,” and she knew that she needed to fight for climate justice in her country and around the world.
“An average of 21 typhoons per year” are recorded in the Philippines, according to Ubaldo. “Ten or more [go] through our community, located in the Ring of Fire.”
The Ring of Fire, which stretches around the edges of the Pacific Ocean, is known for extreme earthquakes, volcanoes and typhoons. Super-typhoon Haiyan, which “killed thousands, washed out thousands of homes” and killed some of Ubaldo’s friends and relatives, directly resulted in the displacement of four million people. Additionally, the crisis impacted 14 million people and caused $14 billion in damages, although it is highly possible that “more damage costs were recorded,” according to Ubaldo.
“We’ve learned that our island is sinking and people are being forced to move from their homes,” Ubaldo said in reference to her community’s grappling with the effects of super-typhoon Haiyan. She recalled “Peers couldn’t go back to school because they needed to provide [for] their families … or had to move away because it was too painful to stay.”
After Haiyan, Ubaldo urged the Filipino government to take action to lessen the human impact on climate change and help those in the Philippines who were displaced due to the typhoon. Speaking about her motivation, Ubaldo said that she “… was tired of being called a victim … [I] refuse to be a ‘victim’ all my life.”
Ubaldo went on to help organize the first youth climate strike in the Philippines, which aimed to empower young Filipinos to advocate for climate justice and protection from inside the government. This strike was part of a one-week event intended to attract the attention of mass-producing companies to open conversations about the use of fossil-fuels, which harm the environment on a global scale. Ubaldo and the other youth climate protestors demanded that the government “declare a climate emergency” in the Philippines and work toward reducing the human-impact of climate change, specifically by decreasing the use of fossil fuels.
In 2015, Ubaldo was invited to speak at the United Nations’ Conference of the Parties (COP21), which invites people from United Nations countries to discuss climate change and set agendas for future improvement. COP21, held in Paris, allowed for Ubaldo to speak about her community’s story of super-typhoon Haiyan and her demand to bring mass corporations to court over human rights violations.
“For the first time, climate change litigation was founded for human rights, and it was done in the Philippines,” Ubaldo said during her lecture. This litigation, called the Climate Change and Human Rights Inquiry, was a landmark ruling that determined “fossil fuel companies could be held accountable for human rights violations linked to climate change impacts.”
Ubaldo participated in and spearheaded many more climate change protests and events, including the Write for Rights campaign in 2019. This campaign asked the Philippine government to provide substantial housing to displaced Haiyan survivors. The letter-writing campaign garnered 538,000 supporters and called for “international attention to the need [to] protect the rights of climate-affected populations,” Ubaldo said.
Ubaldo recently attended COP28, which was held in Dubai in November and December of 2023.
“I am now continuing [climate justice advocacy] in the U.S., going to Black and Brown communities in North Carolina,” Ubaldo shared at the end of her lecture.
In her lecture, Ubaldo emphasized the human displacement, internal migration and cross-border migration that result from climate change. Climate refugees and migrants are concepts that refer to individuals who are forced to leave their homes due to “rising sea levels, extreme weather events or other environmental degradation, leading to large-scale migration patterns with significant social and economic impacts on individuals and communities,” according to Ubaldo. Internal migration is the movement of individuals within a country, while cross-border migration refers to movement to a different country “due to the effects of climate change,” according to UNHCR.
Ubaldo’s final question to the audience was “Are you ready to join me in addressing the climate crisis?” Audience members then asked questions, ate dessert and mingled.
“Climate change is happening now, happened years ago, and is happening in other parts of the world,” Ubaldo said before the end of the lecture: “Don’t wait until it knocks on your door.”