Javea Estavillo, the Philippines' youth delegate to the recent climate change conference in Dubai, delivered a speech calling for developed nations to compensate smaller countries for damage caused by climate change.
Raised in Pasig and bound for Stanford University, Javea shares with Howie Severino her impressions of being one of the youngest among tens of thousands of attendees in Dubai. While noting the "small steps" that gave her hope, she acknowledged feeling annoyed by the adults in the room who "kept talking and talking, and a lot of the time I'm sitting there, like, 'Yeah, you're saying that but you're not going to change.'"
Before representing the country's youth, Javea spent time on a remote island in MIndanao without electricity getting to know young people there. Afterwards, she helped raise money for solar panels for the community.
At Stanford, she intends to study climate science on the road to becoming an environmental lawyer. "Hopefully in the future I'll participate in climate negotiations as a delegate instead of a youth delegate”.
Speech file courtesy of Atty. Antonio La Viña.
Raised in Pasig and bound for Stanford University, Javea shares with Howie Severino her impressions of being one of the youngest among tens of thousands of attendees in Dubai. While noting the "small steps" that gave her hope, she acknowledged feeling annoyed by the adults in the room who "kept talking and talking, and a lot of the time I'm sitting there, like, 'Yeah, you're saying that but you're not going to change.'"
Before representing the country's youth, Javea spent time on a remote island in MIndanao without electricity getting to know young people there. Afterwards, she helped raise money for solar panels for the community.
At Stanford, she intends to study climate science on the road to becoming an environmental lawyer. "Hopefully in the future I'll participate in climate negotiations as a delegate instead of a youth delegate”.
Speech file courtesy of Atty. Antonio La Viña.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Happy New Year, Podmates!
00:02 How is Severino, again?
00:04 Let me remind you that long attention spans are very smart.
00:08 We've been very happy to note that our interviews with young Filipino achievers
00:13 often garner more listeners and viewers than established celebrities.
00:18 And we have with us now our youngest guest ever,
00:21 all of 17 years old, Javier Estavillo of Pasig.
00:26 A super achiever who was the Philippines' official youth delegate at COP28 in Dubai.
00:34 The international climate change conference attended by heads of state, scientists, activists,
00:40 and many others worried about the fate of the planet.
00:43 Javier delivered a speech there to other delegates on behalf of Philippine youths.
00:48 I was born in 2006. I'm 17.
00:52 By 2050, when the world needs to reach its net zero goals,
00:56 I will be 44, no longer the youth that I am today.
01:00 I will live then in a world whose fate is being decided today.
01:04 Let's work together to ensure that our fate is as bright as it could be.
01:08 Tens of millions of suffering people are crying out for help
01:11 as they confront the existential problem of climate change.
01:15 Let's give them climate financing now.
01:18 In a world where second chances are pitifully hard to come by,
01:21 all I'm saying is give Earth and give us, the youth, a chance.
01:26 Magandang araw and happy new year to you, Javier Estavillo, and congratulations.
01:31 Good morning. Thank you so much for having me, and happy new year.
01:35 Okay, before anything else, your name, Javier, it's uncommon. Where does it come from?
01:43 It's actually a small town in the south of Spain,
01:46 and that's where my parents went for their honeymoon, so I'm named after that town.
01:51 Okay. So, Javier, you go to the British school, right, in Taguig, graduating in June?
01:59 You're academically inclined, you know, we've seen your bio.
02:04 You're the student body president. You're captain of the varsity basketball team.
02:10 You started your own clothing brand. You're active in the climate justice community.
02:14 And now you've represented the country's youth in Dubai.
02:20 Javier, where do you find the time to do all of this?
02:25 A lot of it is really just balancing, and I'm lucky that some of my endeavors,
02:32 like basketball and my brand are my passion, so I see those as downtime,
02:37 whereas others I can put more time into more as work,
02:42 and finding that balance between work and plays, for me,
02:45 what's the most important to having all those things at the same time.
02:49 Okay. This balance between work and studying and play, you know, there's formal play.
02:56 I mean, you play basketball, but how about the normal teenager things, informal stuff,
03:00 like going out with friends, listening to music, that kind of thing?
03:04 Well, that's definitely reserved for the weekends, so if I get enough work done
03:09 or if I push as many things out of the way as I can throughout the week,
03:13 then I do try to spend time with my friends, and I'm lucky over this winter break
03:18 that I can spend a lot of time with my friends, so it's nice to have that balance, too.
03:23 Okay. So the latest big thing in your life is you went to Dubai for COP28,
03:29 the climate change conference. What was the experience like,
03:34 and did you come back more optimistic or pessimistic?
03:41 Well, overall, the experience was extremely overwhelming but very, very interesting
03:49 because there are so many different work streams and side events that I attended.
03:54 Dubai itself, the venue, it was huge, so it was the expo city of Dubai.
03:59 It was really overwhelming because there were pavilions for all of the countries.
04:04 They had side events for everything, so it was really interesting to navigate
04:10 all of those different things, and coming away from COP, you're always a mix of both.
04:16 You're always optimistic and pessimistic because often it's really slow-going.
04:22 The negotiations are tough between the countries because they do have their own interests in mind,
04:27 but I am quite happy about some of the outcomes.
04:31 For example, they finally included phasing out fossil fuels in the mitigation language,
04:36 which is huge because they've never even mentioned fossil fuels before.
04:40 Yeah. This navigation of all the different things that were going on,
04:46 what are some of your takeaways? What are the more interesting experiences?
04:51 Yeah. I did a lot of work before COP on loss and damage and climate financing,
04:57 but throughout COP, I also followed Secretary Loizaga in her work on just transitions and mining.
05:06 I learned a lot about the Philippines in terms of minerals, and we're actually, I think,
05:11 the fifth richest country in terms of minerals, which I had no idea,
05:15 and I didn't know how important we were in terms of that.
05:19 Well, I didn't realize that because I think it's not really reflected in terms of how other countries collaborate with us.
05:26 Learning that we had that power in that sense, but also that vulnerability because there's the chance of exploitation
05:35 because of our minerals, for example, was really interesting to see.
05:39 Did you meet a lot of other young people there from other countries?
05:46 Yeah, I did. I did. But I would say I was very happy to mostly stay with the Philippine youth advocates.
05:54 So I met a lot of them and they're a little bit older than me.
05:58 So they did guide me a lot in terms of my future.
06:01 And they've inspired me with interesting fashion projects that they do or the projects they have at the grassroots level.
06:08 So it was really interesting talking to all of them.
06:11 It is imperative to lobby for climate financing for loss and damage from countries with more financial resources,
06:17 especially those that are the largest contributors to climate change.
06:21 We urge the member countries to make climate financing exclusively for loss and damage a reality now.
06:28 You delivered a speech there. You called on the international community to pay up,
06:35 to help finance loss and damage in developing countries, poor countries, which have borne the brunt of the effects of climate change.
06:46 What were some of the reactions to your speech there?
06:49 Yeah. So since the Philippines is a developing country, I noticed that a lot of the people who came to our pavilion were also from developing countries.
06:59 So since it is usual that the developing countries are more vulnerable to climate change, I saw a lot of people in support of what I said.
07:09 But I knew that if I were put somewhere else, the reactions would be a little more mixed.
07:15 I know that everyone agrees in principle to more climate financing.
07:21 But in reality, if you look at the perspective of developed countries who are richer, you don't want to pay up all the time.
07:31 And that's why it's difficult for climate financing. But I was really happy to see the supportive reactions from everyone there watching.
07:40 You must have been one of the youngest delegates at the conference. You're only 17.
07:45 And we know that the Philippines had not sent a youth delegate to the previous COPs in the last seven years.
07:56 So you were the first in a long time to go. Did you find that the old adults took you seriously?
08:05 How did you find people's reaction to you?
08:08 I really appreciated Secretary Loizaga because she really kept me under her wing.
08:15 She's who I talked to the most and she was supporting me a lot through my journey at COP.
08:21 And it was really overwhelming because other youth activists in the Philippines reached out to me and they wanted me to be the link between the youth and the government.
08:30 So I would always try to get my word in. I would ask Secretary Loizaga if I can organize a meeting between her and the youth.
08:38 And I was really happy that she said yes to a lot of the things I asked for.
08:42 And hopefully in the future, I'll get to sit in on government meetings more and be more involved.
08:49 So a big part of your speech was about loss and damage and the responsibility of the international community, in particular wealthier countries, to compensate poor countries.
09:01 But what in a nutshell is loss and damage?
09:05 So loss and damage is basically the effects that climate change has on a country.
09:14 We're the Philippines. We are hit by super storms annually. We know what loss and damage is. We've experienced it.
09:23 But the whole work stream of loss and damage in a nutshell is about accountability.
09:30 It's about developed countries taking responsibility for the fact that they are the main causers of climate change and paying reparations to the countries who are most affected by it, but play the smallest role in it.
09:43 So it's all about accountability.
09:45 And if the international community does pay for that, what would these funds actually be financing, like specifically?
09:55 So they would be financing, for example, putting up houses again for the most vulnerable whose livelihoods were destroyed, or even supporting the livelihoods of, for example, fishermen who are most affected in coastal areas, or helping fortify the infrastructure of most vulnerable countries.
10:17 So that's the obligation of the international community to countries like ours.
10:23 But what, what in your view is our obligation as a country?
10:28 I mean, what should Filipinos do? What should the Philippine government do?
10:33 So the Philippines is very rich in terms of not only, as I mentioned, minerals, but also biodiversity.
10:42 Our climate and environment can actually be used as a means to help us adapt to climate change. For example, mangroves and seagrass are a great way to help with that.
10:55 And I think contributing our knowledge that we gain through the natural resources that we have to other countries as other solutions for climate impacts would be really helpful.
11:06 Well, as you know, our government or all governments face difficult choices, right?
11:12 And sometimes it's not a matter of just money, but a matter of priority, a matter of philosophy.
11:19 And many others have pointed out that some of the choices our government is making may not favor protection of our interests in terms of the environment, in terms of our resilience, in terms of protecting us from the impact of climate change.
11:36 I'm wondering, since you accompanied government officials there from the Philippines and you heard them and you were able to discuss with them, did any of these issues come up in your conversations with them in terms of our own government's responsibilities?
11:52 Yeah, so actually in one of the conferences that was open to everyone, we were asked the question about safety for environmental activists here because that has been an issue for the Philippines.
12:09 And I think safeguarding activists is really important here because we are at the tip of the spear of climate change.
12:20 So it's really important that we protect people who are advocating for changes. But at the same time, I think that every government faces a choice between economic advancement and helping the climate because those things don't really go hand in hand.
12:39 And I would say that's actually why we're here right now, why we have such big issues globally with climate change. It's because countries oftentimes prioritize advancing the economy over the effects that it has on the environment.
12:54 And so I think it's not just us that faces this question, but it's globally that how should we balance economic advancement and prosperity with helping the climate? And that's a huge question that everyone faces.
13:08 Speaking of activists and critiques, some critics of previous COPs, including the young campaigner that we all know about, Greta Thunberg, accused the summit, the officials who go there, the corporate people who go there, activists accused them of greenwashing.
13:32 That is letting countries and corporations promote their climate credentials without actually making the changes needed.
13:44 You yourself have been exposed already to this kind of conference, to these kinds of discussions and actions. What are your thoughts on this? What are your thoughts on Greta Thunberg and other campaigners' critique of these summits? It's a form of greenwashing.
14:05 I definitely agree. I think sitting there in all of the conferences, they just kept talking and talking. And a lot of the time I'm sitting there like, yeah, you're saying that, but you're not going to change.
14:17 And it was really annoying because everyone was celebrating the fossil fuel phase-out language in the mitigation agreements. But then days later, new fossil fuel centers were opened.
14:32 There were so many developments in terms of using fossil fuels that just baffled me because they were preaching about reducing it. And then all of a sudden there are all these developments globally for using fossil fuels.
14:45 And during one of the conferences, a delegate from Nepal said that the financing for fossil fuels globally is more than the financing for health care and education globally.
14:58 And when I heard that, I was so shocked because there was all this talk about reducing fossil fuels, and yet we're prioritizing it over climate financing, over education and even health care.
15:10 Sometimes it's really frustrating and enraging, honestly, to see that. But at least there are small steps, and I hope the steps get bigger over time.
15:20 But I would take any win at this point. So I'm happy that they included reducing fossil fuels in the language.
15:27 Would you consider yourself an activist?
15:30 Yeah, I would. I think it's really important to balance being an activist and speaking out loudly, but also to arm yourself with science and data and numbers.
15:42 So I like to balance between being an activist and a scientist or an economist.
15:49 I know one of the things you've done in terms of your advocacy was go to a small island off Siargao to deliver solar energy panels. Am I right?
16:04 Yes.
16:05 Okay. What were your impressions from that experience? Your takeaways?
16:10 Yeah, so I actually stayed there for three nights. The island is called La Hanusa. It's a really small island.
16:16 Okay, this is not near the famous surfing places in Siargao.
16:21 This is about a 40-minute banca ride away, but it's a really rough ride.
16:26 So what was that like?
16:27 I stayed there for three nights with no electricity, so they didn't have solar panels at the time.
16:34 And I was lucky enough to have a host family with two girls my age. Their names are Anang and Trisha, and I still try to keep in touch with them.
16:43 I got really close to them during that time. But over those three nights, I sort of lived their reality.
16:49 So I woke up at sunrise and played outside at night in the street when it was dark, and then I helped them with their chores.
16:59 I basically lived their life without light. And it was so different from the life that I'm used to that when I came back and every time I turned the lights off,
17:08 I sort of relived the reality in my mind, and it really couldn't escape me.
17:14 So I wanted to start a project at school, at my school's Red Cross, to purchase solar panels for that community, for I think the 125 households there,
17:26 and deliver it back because I wanted their lives to be as productive as possible and as fruitful as possible.
17:37 Because when I was there, I spoke to Anang and Trisha, and they were telling me about how they couldn't really go to school anymore and things like that.
17:46 So I just really wanted to help in any way that I can.
17:50 So through the school, we raised I think 500,000 pesos, and we worked with Caritas in Siargao to help make the project more sustainable.
18:00 So they gave teachings on how to restore the panels, how to use the panels, and if they're broken, how they can fix the panels so that it was a more sustainable project.
18:11 And yeah, recently we sent the solar panels back, and I'm really happy that they are solarized again.
18:18 Yeah. So these kids, they were no longer in school. They were heavily affected by Typhoon Odette.
18:28 Is that why they didn't have any electricity, or they had always not had electricity?
18:33 It was Typhoon Odette. So before then, they had solar panels from a co-op.
18:39 But there was also a problem with that because they had to pay monthly payments for those solar panels as a loan.
18:47 But during Typhoon Odette, all of their solar panels were either broken or blown away.
18:55 So in the aftermath of the storm, they had no more electricity or energy.
19:00 Anything new that you want to do in the Philippines after your experience in Dubai?
19:07 That's a good question. I definitely want to do more storytelling through fashion.
19:13 That's something one of the other youth advocates I met does a lot, and he was really inspiring in terms of that.
19:20 And since I am already involved with recycling fashion, I really want to see how I can use that to spread awareness on climate issues with the Philippine youth.
19:32 Because I mean, fashion is very popular here, and the fashion scene is really nice. So I want to tap more into that.
19:39 I want to ask you about another endeavor you've been involved in, Flower Power. It's a recycling fashion endeavor or enterprise.
19:50 Is that a trademark name by you? And what does it do?
19:58 Yeah, I think it is trademarked. So it's just a play on the term Flower Power.
20:04 So instead of flower, like the plant, it's like flower. I recycle clothes from flower sacks that companies discarded.
20:13 So I emailed San Miguel and URC and I asked them if I could buy their discarded flower sacks from them for cheap.
20:21 And I worked with some seamstresses to make clothing from that.
20:25 And how is it doing?
20:27 It's doing pretty well. I had to stop making collections for a bit because of school and getting busy with COP.
20:33 But I'm going to make another collection. And it's been really fun to work with the seamstresses and also other Filipino creatives to make this happen.
20:43 And yeah, I really love this project. It's really my passion project because I love fashion and design.
20:50 So it's just a nice way to get into that some more whilst still supporting my environmental work.
20:57 So you're working with seamstresses. You have products that you've been selling already.
21:01 Yeah.
21:02 And so how do people see the products? Is there an Instagram account?
21:07 It's mostly on Instagram. I'm not very good with Facebook. So it's Instagram. And I also have a website.
21:16 All right. Now, you're graduating in June. What are your college plans?
21:21 So I recently got into Stanford. So I'll be going there in the fall next year. And I'm really, really excited there because Stanford's great for climate financing and anything sustainable.
21:36 So I'm really excited.
21:37 Congratulations. And what do you intend to study there?
21:40 I'm planning to study economics and climate sciences.
21:45 Oh, OK. So you're going to be pursuing this advocacy as a career, it seems. So what do you want to be?
21:53 I would like to be a environmental lawyer like my mentor, Dean Tony Lavinia.
22:01 He's been mentoring me a lot through this process, and he's really inspired me in terms of his work as an environmental lawyer and pushing the frontier of this field in the Philippines.
22:12 And hopefully maybe I'll participate in climate negotiations as a delegate instead of a youth delegate in the future.
22:19 What would you want our country to be aside from being compliant with the COP climate goals?
22:25 I mean, what do you imagine would be the best version of our country in the future?
22:32 The Philippines is so naturally gifted that I don't think any country comes close to us in terms of that.
22:38 So the ideal Philippines to me would be a country that harnesses our natural gifts for the better for us, because I think that there's so many untapped resources that we have not to exploit them or anything, but to like use the ideals of them.
22:55 Like, for example, mangroves and seagrass, how rich we are in terms of them and helping countries in terms of our natural technology to approach the climate change in a solution, a natural solution based way, and to also leverage our position in terms of mineral richness.
23:16 That's a good point to end on. We want to thank you, Javea, for what you're doing and for being a beacon of hope, not just for our youths, but for adults.
23:25 Mabuhay ka, Javea Estavillo, the Philippines' youth delegate to COP28 Climate Change Conference in Dubai. Maraming maraming salamat.
23:34 Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me.
23:36 Hi, I'm Howie Severino. Check out the Howie Severino Podcast. New episodes will stream every Thursday.
23:43 Listen for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and other platforms.
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