PUERTO PRINCESA, Palawan – United States (US) Embassy Press Attaché Kanishka Gangopadhyay urged journalists to report on climate change to spread awareness among leaders and people in the country and the world to do something to mitigate the effects of climate change to the lives of communities.
Gangopadhyay, together with US Embassy officials and journalists from different parts of the country, paid a recent visit to the communities of the Tagbanua in barangay Napsan to be appraised on the initiatives undertaken by this indigenous peoples to recover from the wrath of Supertyphoon Odette that struck most parts of Mindanao and Visayas last December.
“I would like to thank the journalists in advance for the stories they will produce on the real effects of climate change and the effects of climate change on communities like yours,” Gangopadhyay told young and old members of the Tagbanua who were gathered to attend an important engagement with the US Embassy officials.
He pointed out that the US Embassy is proud to support climate change mitigation and adaptation projects that will allow communities in the different parts of the world to rebuild.
The US Embassy official asserted the Biden administration considers climate change to affecting all people in any part of the world, and everyone from the east coast of the United States and to any part of the world will feel the effects of climate change, be it desertification, destruction from storms, food becoming expensive due to changing weather conditions that make food production more difficult or expensive or even not possible at all.
According to him, the effects of climate change are real and they are happening everywhere and it’s quite serious that the government and society need to take action to combat it.
He assured that the US Embassy will continue to work with Filipinos in terms of leading the way not only in climate change but also in security, economy and leadership in the world.
Gangopadhyay gave a brief background on the effects of Supertyphoon Odette as from Tagbanua elders who personally narrated their emotional stories on their harrowing experience at the height of the weather disturbance that struck them last December.
The US Embassy held its 14th Annual Media Seminar “Our Shared Future: Reporting on and Addressing the Climate Crisis’ at the Hue hotel here last September 22-23, 2022 attended by some 20 journalists from different parts of the country.
Gangopadhyay joined the US Embassy in Manila as Press Attaché in August 2022. Immediately prior to his posting in the Philippines, he served as a foreign Policy Advisor at the US Africa Command in Stuttgart, Germany. His prior positions include as Public Affairs Officer at the US Embassy in Cotonou, Benin and Cultural Affairs officer in Pristina, Kosovo.
He also served as a Desk Officer in the office of Iraq Affairs, and in consular positions in Mumbai and Islamabad.