A HOUSE leader on Saturday lauded the signing by President Rodrigo Duterte of the Paris Agreement on climate change as well as the Senate’s concurrence with this landmark accord that both underline the Philippines’ formal expression of solidarity with the heightened international drive to arrest global warming.
CamSur Rep. LRay Villafuerte said the Senate ratification of the agreement was “timely and significant” as this would mean the process on the Philippines’ accession to the climate change treaty would likely be completed before Earth Day on April 22.
He said: “Coming from a province and region that is highly vulnerable to climate change, the President’s signing of the Paris Agreement and the Senate’s ratification of this accord are certainly welcome.
“Once we complete the ratification process, we would now have a full seat in the Conference of Parties that will tackle the treaty’s implementation.
“We would now have a say in the conference and we can lobby for more funding on behalf of emerging economies such as the Philippines that are most vulnerable to climate change.”
Villafuerte was referring to the next round of meetings of the parties to the Paris Agreement scheduled in November in Bonn, Germany.
He lamented that CamSur had been most vulnerable to the changing weather patterns triggered by global warming.
“Long dry spells and strong typhoons have upset the planting seasons in CamSur’s farms, affecting palay production and the sharing of water resources in the watersheds of Lake Buhi-Barit in the province and in Quinale in Albay,” he said.
Six of the average 20 typhoons that enter the country each year pummel Bicol, he said.
With the Philippines’ accession to the Paris Agreement, Villafuerte said.the country would now have the moral high ground to aggressively access a proposed $100-billion global fund to help “weatherproof” developing economies most vulnerable to climate change.
“We can, in the future, access this additional financing to build climate risk-resilient infrastructure, improve our management of irrigation water for our farms, and teach our farmers new climate-change adaptive technologies, among other measures to protect our communities from the adverse effects of the now erratic weather patterns,” Villafuerte said.
Villafuerte recalled the Philippines and other countries most vulnerable to climate change had sought $100 billion in additional financing from global institutions to help protect themselves from the destructive effects of global warming, such as droughts, rising sea levels, devastating storms and other extreme weather events.
Under the Paris agreement, the Philippines pledged a 70-percent cut in emissions by 2030 on condition it would receive assistance from developed countries in mitigating the effects of climate change.
Villafuerte said the House of Representatives would do its part in helping build the country’s resilience to climate change by approving his eco-friendly proposal on a “climate” tax on carbon dioxide emissions.
“Would-be proceeds from this proposed tax are to be used solely for programs designed to help especially the most vulnerable Philippine communities better adapt to unpredictable weather cycles and other disastrous effects of global warming,” Villafuerte said.