Unexpected, but accepted. Blessed to travel

Starting the year right with some rest. I was quite sick since the 31st of December and was quite bedridden over the new year, my aesthetic physician gave me some antibiotics after a quick check up recommending that I get some Botox as well. I just can’t drive to see a GP. Hopefully I could heal soon and get some work started as 2026 seems to be quite an exciting year for someone like me.

It is exciting but the climate problem is getting more critical and climate action is needed. There’s so much work to do but that seems to be an opportunity for me to solve some of these problems. The work is quite unexpected but so is the travel. I started 2025 believing I won’t be travelling internationally but towards the end of the year starting October, I travelled to four countries that was totally unplanned but last minute I was requested to go.

I’m grateful for my organization for trusting me to represent them in Laos and it was an opportunity to meet people from similar organizations as well. A UNEP colleague described me as quite popular in one of our regional meetings, my network is expanding and my expertise is being recognized but I am still here at my old crumbling house struggling for everyone around me to understand what I am doing.

I have had more travels when I was an auditor and verifier, those were the truly adventurous times going into actual field work in refineries, plantations, factories and really where the sources of emissions come from. My travels right now are on conferences and meetings, arguing about methodologies and procedures to measure and monitor what is happening on the field. Some colleagues seem to have limited field exposure that it is difficult to relate the discussion to what is actually happening on the ground. The most that we can do is organize study tours and peer exchanges which does not go into the details of emission reduction unlike actual field verification work.

Even within ministries and gigantic organizations there is often a misperception and projection of what is really happening at the other side of the building or in another building within the compound. The work is getting complicated as climb up the ladder of leadership positions, you rarely have the opportunity to see what is on the ground, basement or some other nook and cranny that you don’t usually see.

At this point in my career I know what I am doing, I know what I am capable of but I also know my limitations now. I can’t go back doing the sampling and field monitoring anymore.

On point, in my lifetime

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First of all, I’m grateful to be alive. This year is somewhat my busiest work year and I hope I hadn’t stretched myself so hard that I am compromising my health. I fully accept my middle aged momentum to now enter the latter half part of my life at 45. I will be 46 in a couple of weeks and quite grateful with the kind of life I have lived as ecomaray that I started in my 20s.

In the early 2000s, my family barely understood the career path I am taking. 20 years later, there is just so much work, so much opportunities, so much things to do in fighting climate change and so much stress in everything that is happening that it is more practical to focus on something specific and specialized.

I have been the country’s F-gas control national expert during the NDC 3.0 update but I think it somewhat burned me out, I’m struggling with my identity as a technical expert on F-gases and doing the leg work in sustaining the funding for the work we do based on donor priorities. I am hoping more younger people would go into this field with very limited people and most people are still struggling with the technicalities related to the work we do, as if advocacy is enough.

Will I see the phase-out of fossil fuels in my lifetime?

Bandwagons, that I was once riding.

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Back to reality after my mission to Europe. Hating the information I get from social media and the news about the effects of flooding in the Philippines. Rather than crush my spirit and pull my heartstrings, to me it’s just the usual observation of how things will turn out when you did horrible things from the past.

All the effects from the decline of nature and our lack of effective action against extreme weather events. I am saving myself from these types of disasters and not playing the victim. What is happening right now is the result of the quality of our climate action. The point is, nothing was effective, functional and productive. You are now looking at the results, looking at this objectively, and this is what you get, no denial and illusions just low quality action. Someone told me that ISO 14090 is too technical, then we are simply fully limiting ourself from truly improving the quality of our climate action because we are not opening ourselves up for continual improvement. All these lies are leading us into a steady decline towards destruction. Should we accept that?

Let us not expect good things from bad actions regardless how it was thickly sugarcoated by hocus pocus magicians blocking us from seeing the truth. There are standards and criteria for evaluating effectiveness but social media posts or public relation stunts are not indicators for effectiveness and good quality climate action. I have been working on climate change for two decades and at times, my own family does not take me seriously as if stuff like this are for the insane.

Now that I’m a middle aged woman approaching menopause, I can see through everyone’s BS, it’s all denial, pretense and lies. Life is not a fairytale, you can’t survive and thrive in a vicious cycle of denial, lying and pretending that things are OK when it is totally not.

The heat pump is on

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Looking in one of the courtyards in Vienna, it seems the heat pump is necessary for survival for both the cold and the heat. I even suggested in our acquisition workshop that this technology has the potential for climate change adaptation. I don’t know how this will turn out in the future, but I am sure that I know what I am doing in terms of my job.

I am the kind of person who is not really into cold weather, I always end up in chills while in the cold. I have given up opportunities to migrate in North America not because of the cold weather but due to how dysfunctional the circumstances are. Yes, the dysfunction always happen if you are not fully conscious and fully honest with yourself or with others. Often it is sad that I barely could talk heat pump to anyone, and most men are just perverts and would not take me seriously in the fight against climate change as if they are better experts and they are better at everything. It is just exhausting as if I would be happy giving up something.

Honestly, I have been quite miserable as I slowly drift away from my family’s expectations and requirements, from what I thought are my source of comfort and care. At times, I would ask myself if I am truly the problem or I just have to deal with their shadows and unconsciousness. I know I am a good person but I am not perfect, I just found things that I really love that no one within my circle of family and friends truly understood. Everything is just perceived and assumed. Nobody really cares about heat pumps or the F-gases inside but in my travels, research and exploration, I know I am doing something worthwhile.

Unusual and unique but actually standardized

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Up until now, now one is talking climate change. For God’s sake you are against nature. Just like we did for these three bulbs of fresh fennel I found in a tropical country which seems to be flown in from a temperate country. It was possible through the cold chain. I just got feedback that Clean Cooling Collaborative, a funder for one of our projects that compared to Vietnam, they are more likely to finance projects with us in the Philippines. I guess my years in conformity assessment was something valuable for them.

I need to write our paper. I need to write a lot of papers now but the procrastination is attacking, actually no, the overwhelm of too much on my plate again. Most test laboratories don’t consider the safety specifications in the standards because they fail to consider that R32 is slightly flammable but it is descriptive and it is not worth publishing at a scientific level. It just feels pathetic that I can’t work with people who truly understood what we are truly working on.

Marai, buying stuff, having trainings, organizing events and study tours… to South Korea, does feel empty and superficial. I guess that is my role, not really being the scientist but being the one who manage the budget, procurement and expenditure. Is this my future even if I get a PhD? Looking at the PhDs around me, that’s what they are doing, cash count and get people assigned to have their jobs continue, get more projects, get more funding, get more stuff. So what now?

The highly technical studies are usually contracted out to the experts who are sometimes playing games, negotiating the fees in their tenders, going into the details of their deliverables, receiving their complaints, and sometimes filling the gaps. I have managed consultants who totally did not deliver and I exerted the effort to fill their gaps which I now see as bad practice. Yes, I became an expert on something but it puts so much work on me.

That kind of work could not be sustained. I had the experience of working with global consultants who need local counterparts that I could not find. I guess that’s what happened in my previous assignment, the only person the ministry could recommend was me and I have to take a leave to really work on the technical stuff that I totally enjoyed. Now I’m back with a stable salary and medical benefits but a bit frustrated.

I guess that is why I have relied on ISO standards to provide guidance on my work, it simplifies everything, straightforward and direct to the point. I love technical committee meetings. I love the intellectual stimulation and I love that something good comes out of it like a standard, a regulation and transformational change.

Foresight and projections

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There are interfaces and co-benefits in climate action which is now defined by ISO standards. Climate action encompasses mitigation which is the control, prevention and removal of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and adaptation which is the changes in a number of systems (food supply, water supply, health, etc. ) to mainstream climate change given its impacts. I have been working on the mitigation side since 2007 but there are more experts on the adaptation side and there seems to be a greater priority for adaptation given the allocation of resources for activities such as flood control.

I was doing some practice hypothesis tests in R last night and all nulls are rejected now that climate change impacts are here. I have been feeling it since 2012 but nobody truly cared. Everyone is just in a state of denial and gaslighting themselves that everything is uncertain. Just continue the status quo and whatever will be, will be, que sera sera.

As I am washed out with all these investigations on the fraud from flood control projects, it just demonstrated how a lack of climate lens or taking climate change seriously has been the approach of many on this topic. It is 2025, we have exceeded the 1.5 degree threshold for global temperature rise which people were fighting for in 2017 but everything just seems futile and worthless because money was just wasted to build resilience and resilience indicators are all failures because of greed and the lack of foresight. We have adequate time series data to demonstrate how stubborn and resistant to change everyone is. Everything seems fake and pretentious. It’s just a circus, an epidemic in this time series where attention to detail rises like an illness.

In 2021, I was trying to contract a climate change adaptation expert who is based in the UK who is the convenor of the ISO 14090 climate change adaptation standard. My former project had resources to hire him as trainer for the standard and give government officials a training and familiarization on the indicators and assessment tools to align action based on climate change adaptation principles which was agreed and specified in the standards. Delaying, blocking and sabotaging efforts just came my way and the funds for that proposed training and learning did not push through.

As usual, I was deemed too technical. But it seems alignment to principles and assessment of conformity standards and specifications is not really easily accepted. Time series data with robust information has statistically rejected the null on this. As you observe the futility and failures, I just maintain my dignity and self respect. I just have to be consistent and kind because I am pretty sure that I have a purpose.

The carbon markets is here from an unlikely source

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https://pia.gov.ph/doe-to-unlock-economic-and-environmental-benefits-with-new-carbon-credit-policy-for-the-energy-sector/

The first real rules for carbon trading will soon be out. I attended the stakeholder consultation last Tuesday and yes there will be something to start with but within the scope of the energy sector. I guess the energy ministry pushed through because they are bombarded by project developers who want to cash in on what is happening globally.

I started working with the carbon markets in 2008 when I was working for a corporate fast food company. Almost every month a carbon market project developer would approach us and propose a project idea to capture the methane from the grease traps of fast food restaurants (waste) and the relatively feasible conversion of used cooking oil into biodiesel (energy). The corporate management was not really looking at it as a business venture but more of a corporate social responsibility scheme to make the company look good after multiple notice of violations on noncompliance with the fats, oil and grease (FOG) waste water parameters.

That was the time when I started my blog on fastfood greenwash where everyone seems not to take our jobs seriously. They thought public relations and communications are more effective than really doing the measurement, reporting and verification. In most of our workshops, I had been called too technical, using common words like ambient air quality and wastewater effluent. Oh Lord, after two masters degrees and now working towards my PhD, there are still a lot of people who think that what I do is not that serious and worthwhile, and its all PR and communications.

Participants working with vulnerable populations and local communities who can’t seem to understand what the policy is all about, but the organizers were gracious enough to respect their point. Local communities and local government units can apply as project developers. The project development and verification process has always been complicated and it really takes a lot of integrity to have complete and accurate information on emission reductions that are additional and fully attributable to the project. I guess there is still that perception that what we do are just narratives without the proper measures.

Fulfilling a temptation or living a dream

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Yesterday, I attended my refresher course on operations research for my PhD to revive my old mathematical skills on vectors and matrices which I remember taking from as far back in the 90s. After all the weird things that have been happening in my life, I guess I have to change the language I am using to describe my situation. Temptation should no longer be used, what I want to achieve is not sinful in fact it is something truly good for me. It had pushed away people that I thought genuinely loved me and supported me but their demons have showed up and how they had manifested themselves as the constraint and the problem that has sabotaged my progress for the past 20 years.

The professor asked us what we had for lunch and I have gathered adequate evidence from my camera phone that I ate kimchi rice with spam and egg topped with sheets of nori and roasted sesame seeds with a lemonade. I was very detailed in my description and the professor commended me for the attention to detail which is essential for operations research. I believe everyone now agrees that this is my truth and I have evidence to demonstrate what I truly ate for lunch yesterday.

The last coursework I took on toxicology was in 2019 and everything feels refreshing and revitalizing that I am back in class again post COVID-19 pandemic. If this is living your temptation why does it feel genuinely good and blessed? There were years in my life when I was living in sin yet I gaslighted myself into believing it was a blessing. The truth will eventually come out and the truth shall set you free.

Just transition or simply a natural death of industry

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My short-term assignment as the national expert on industrial process and product use is about to end in a few weeks and a transition back to graduate school is something I will have to look forward to. I just received the email confirmation that my proposed adviser for the PhD program has confirmed her willingness to work with me on my research topic on frostbite. Is this perfect timing, or simply ways to torture myself to fulfill my academic temptation. I was dreading to go back to work full time to my old day job, everything seems horrible in our office, I would prefer to work part-time or even just as a contractor.

Today is my 9th year anniversary working for my organization but I am quite disappointed at how things had turned out, they just dumped too much work on me that I believe no longer fits my qualification and my work didn’t even generate an impactful knowledge product. Everything seemed shallow and superficial, it feels mediocre. The people who contracted me for this short-term assignment were quite impressed at what I am capable of doing and I am likely to get another short-term assignment on “decarbonization of hard-to-abate industries” and as advised by my mentor and friend who also underwent the same route of employment opportunities, just grab whatever good things you can get, now that you are part of the roster of experts.

Even if opportunities for decarbonization is vast, the information I gathered from the local industry was quite disappointing. It seems we failed to meet the peaking of emissions of core heavy industries like steel and chemicals manufacturing. The energy cost is too high, the raw materials are imported and closing down the business seems like the most feasible thing you can do. Then how about the workers? As if it’s the natural course of things and not fighting for a just energy transition. The national emissions are not high because industry is dying because of the lack of competitive advantage with neighboring ASEAN countries just like my experience with Yamal LNG.

What are we really good at? Call centers and business process outsourcing, there is the growth of the service sector who can only do energy efficiency, the foundation, the basic energy source according to Art Rosenfeld and my collaborators from Berkeley Labs. I am still charged to that project but it is evolving into something quite unsatisfying for someone like mee…dee pee.

En-gendered species

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This green space surrounds a golf course, often we don’t really get into the heart or core of things, our perceptions only look at what is seen, often it is superficial. Getting a view of Manila with my German boss during a free day after her mission in June. There seems to be more people working on gender issues than on the core mitigation processes of industrial decarbonization but they could not get to the core of gender issues inside the places where you are exposed to the hazard of heavy industry. They called it GEDSI now, Gender Equality, Disability and Social Inclusion to be more inclusive. I look at the “irony” of the iron and steel industry in the Philippines, the upstream people in ore processing does not fully agree with the downstream people in steelmaking. Is that a social inclusion issue?

The mining sector has been somewhat demonized in the last decade because of a former environment minister but the production and operating cost of intermediate processing is expensive given the high energy cost of blast furnace operations. But with the rapid urbanization of the country, demand for steel products is high. The option is to import from China, Vietnam or Indonesia. It just brought back memories when I was working on the Yamal LNG project at the AG&P yard in Batangas. The LNG modules were pulled out and distributed to China and Indonesia because they are more efficient with lower raw material and operating cost. They even re-assigned the Filipino workers with the modules to ensure technical continuity and knowledge management. Labor is mobile and they bring with them their technical qualification. We were doing second party QA/QC of the LNG modules before they could be shipped to Siberia.

My experience with Yamal highlighted the gender gap in working with heavy industry. That was after my maternity leave. My French boss re-assigned me to oversee the QHSE of the project because I just got back from my maternity leave and I could not do site audits because I was breastfeeding. AG&P has no lactation facilities in 2015, I just carry with me a breast pump covered inside what seem to be a lunch bag and a pink cashmere scarf to cover my chest while pumping. I also noted the same situation with one of the participants from the DENR-EMB pumping during our learning session in TESDA Korphil Regional Training Center (RTC), we don’t even have a female restroom nearby and the restrooms were not sanitary enough to collect breast milk.

I have to admit, I had rare and unusual experiences in my work and I struggle with being understood. I thought that working with climate policy would reduce my risk from hazard exposure, but people could not relate to my past experiences. Everyone is talking industrial decarbonization like its the next “in” thing. Well, try breastfeeding in a steel fabrication yard where everyone is male, working at height and exposed to heavy equipment and safety hazards and can kill you at one single powerful blow. It is not minimizing my experience but I guess I have come a long way in reaching those places.

I still talk exposure assessment and occupational safety which is easily understood in the GEDSI discussion. Hazards are innate in workplaces and in hard to abate industries, the risk in terms of frequency and severity is higher, that is why they are paid more with a hazard pay premium. Is hazard pay something that women should aim for? Some are driving the discussion that gender equality is getting the same pay and the same hazard exposure risk. Everything is just getting complicated, just get published OK.