Until lately, I would have assessed the Aquino administration’s record on climate change as a mixture of success and failure. But with the submission last Oct. 1, 2015 of our Intended Nationally Determined Contributions to the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, I am now inclined to give this government a more positive mark.
Climate change did not start out as a priority for President Aquino. Unlike his predecessor, former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Aquino did not set aside a day a week just to focus on climate change. After a series of typhoons—Milenyo, Reming, Frank, Ondoy and Pepeng—Arroyo paid attention to this most serious development and environment threat to the country, aware that economic development and whatever little progress we could achieve in the fight against poverty was endangered by this global phenomenon. The former president also actively engaged world leaders on this issue, joining more than a hundred heads of states in the 2009 Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change. I personally witnessed President Arroyo’s engagement with the issue as I was asked several times to attend a meeting with her to discuss our international strategy on climate change.
Although President Aquino did not regularly convene or attend the meetings of the Climate Change Commission, an agency he chairs (an error committed by Congress in my view as Presidents should not be heading specific agencies), he did create a cabinet cluster on climate change and environment. And after Yolanda devastated the Visayas, the Aquino administration became more aggressive on climate change adaptation, among other things increasing the budget for climate related programs, projects and activities.
President Aquino himself began spending more time on the issue, attending in September 2014 the special summit on climate change convened by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon in the UN headquarters in New York City. There, President Aquino made it clear he knew what was at stake with climate change. He committed the Philippines “to take steps to maintain and even improve our low-emission development strategy and the trajectory of our energy mix.”
A year later, the Philippines became the 136th country to submit an INDC and one that delivers on the promise made by President Aquino in his speech. Our submission is in compliance with the decision of the Conference of the Parties to the climate change convention held last year in Lima, Peru where in all Parties were invited to initiate domestic preparations in anticipation of the legally binding agreement to be decided upon in Paris, France later this year. These contributions will determine the extent of the ambition and conviction of governments in arriving at an agreement that will once and for all address effectively the global issue of climate change.
The INDC of the Philippines is a six-page document anchored on the country’s policy declaration under the Climate Change Law where in it is stated that the Philippines shall cooperate with the global community in the resolution of climate change issues. In my view, the Philippine INDC is ambitious, comprehensive, and transformative. Although the details have to be worked out in a rigorous, transparent, participatory and consultative manner, I believe the INDC is doable even as it will be challenging to achieve. In the words of Ateneo de Manila University president Fr. Jett Villarin SJ, the country’s most prominent climate scientist, “This INDC will require us to truly transform our economy.”
The core components of our INDC are our commitments in mitigation and adaptation.
For mitigation, the Philippines has proposed a 70-percent cut in carbon emissions by 2030 relative to its Business as Usual scenario for the decades 2000-2030. This means we are committing to increase only a third of what would have been our increase in emissions by 2030 based on 2000 levels. Such increase is expected as a normal consequence of economic growth. By agreeing to these emission reductions by 2030, we have agreed to implement mitigation measures that would avoid the expected increase. For example, this means an energy mix that is tilted towards renewables; in essence, it is a commitment to rely less on coal power that has been the trend up to today.
While energy measures would be the biggest area of mitigation, we would also need to implement transportation programs and projects, solid waste management, industry interventions, and other sustainable development measures. Likewise, we would have to reduce deforestation and enhance our reforestation activities given that the forest sector is a big contributor to our emissions (as well as potentially huge for carbon sequestration).
As for adaptation, recognizing that the Philippines is one of the most climate vulnerable country in the world, the INDC indicates that the country will prioritize adaptation and will strive to mainstream this as well as disaster risk reduction in all plans and programs at all levels.
To be sure that we are not compromising our sustainable development needs, especially the goal of reducing poverty, we made the implementation of our INDC conditional on assistance from our partners and support from the international community. We are already doing many things on our own to mitigate and adapt to climate change and my understanding is that this will not change.
Finally, most remarkable in the Philippine INDC is that it reflects our country’s consistent advocacy of the inclusion of loss and damage and human rights into the evolving global climate change regime. Domestically, we have committed to respect human rights in the implementation of mitigation and adaptation interventions. This is true to our reputation as a global leader on this issue where we have led efforts to integrate human rights into the Paris agreement on climate change.
From what I gather, President Aquino himself, with key officials like Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima, Neda Director General Arsenio Balisacan, and recently resigned Secretary Lucille Sering (Vice-Chair of the CCC who will be running in the elections as representative of Surigao del Sur), spent precious hours finalizing the INDC. This means this ambitious INDC has the backing of the highest levels of government. To means, this cements a good legacy on climate change for the Aquino administration.
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