PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte said Monday he will sign the Paris Climate Agreement but he will also press for sanctions on highly industrialized countries.
“After much debate, I will sign the climate change agreement because it’s a unanimous Cabinet vote, except for one or two members,” Duterte said, saying that he and Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr., were against signing the deal.
Duterte maintained that he isn’t confident that the deal will be beneficial to the country “but of course we are bound if we sign it but in matters of enforcement, if it’s a binding treaty, there has to be a sanction. So otherwise if you don’t, there’s something coming up your way,” he said.
“Read [the document] again and again and [you will] never find that there is a sanction, even in the matter of contributing the money to the common fund,” he added.
Duterte earlier slammed Western countries for imposing carbon limits on the Philippines to mitigate the impact of climate change when the highest carbon emissions came from industrialized countries.
“Industrialized countries are known not to honor financial obligations, especially America. It has not even paid its dues to the United Nations,” Duterte said.
The Philippines has pledged to decrease its carbon emission by 0.3 percent, even as national law already states that the country has to reduce it by 70 percent by 2030—a target conditional on assistance from the international community.
Duterte’s earlier misgivings about the deal triggered critical reactions from both allies and opponents, most notably former President Fidel Ramos who said that the country needs to ratify the deal or Filipinos will suffer from climate change.
After Duterte has signed the deal, the Senate would have to ratify the deal which came into force on November 4, becoming a landmark demonstrating that countries are serious in addressing global warming.
