This has been a good week for climate change in the Philippines. Finally, after months of uncertainty, the Philippine government has decided to move forward on the ratification of the Paris Agreement. This was decided in a meeting of the Climate Change Commission convened by President Rodrigo Duterte last Tuesday, January 31.
National Economic and Development Authority director general Ernesto Pernia, who attended the meeting, which was a joint meeting with the Advisory Board (like the CCC, also created by the Climate Change Act of 2009) is quoted as saying that the President asked heads of departments to address the question why it was important for the Philippines to join the Paris agreement. “Nobody objected. We were all in favor of ratification,” Pernia continued.
Senator Loren Legarda, the longtime environmental and climate change champion in the legislature, was also at the meeting. In a press statement, Legarda praised President Duterte, “Under the Climate Change Act, there are three commissioners of the CCC and the chairperson is no less than the President of the Philippines. I am glad that for the first time since the law was enacted, the President has finally convened the Commission. This is a good sign that our President sees the importance of addressing climate change impacts as it affects the overall development of the country.” The Climate Change Act actually mandates quarterly meetings for this important body but this was not followed by the Aquino administration which also did not convene, not even once, the Advisory Body.
Senator Legarda also shared the information that the Department of Foreign Affairs has announced that it has already received all the Certificates of Concurrences needed so that the President can ratify the Paris Agreement. For a few weeks now, the Department of Energy was the remaining holdout. Now, it is on board and ratification can proceed without any more delay.
According to Legarda: “It is a welcome development that all concerned agencies of government are now ready to ratify the Paris Agreement. Once the Executive ratifies and transmits the instrument of ratification to the Senate, I would actively shepherd the Senate’s immediate concurrence.” In fact, on Monday, the Committees on Climate Change, Finance, Ways and Means, and Trade, Commerce and Entrepreneurship will have a joint meeting that will begin the process of ratification.
Senator Legarda explains why ratification of the Paris Agreement is urgent: “The issue of climate justice, which is one of the concerns of the administration, is enshrined in the Agreement. If we ratify, we become part of the succeeding meetings about the Paris Agreement. It is to our advantage that we are in the talks so we can converge with our fellow vulnerable nations on how we should move forward and compel big greenhouse gas (GHG) emitters to do their fair share.”
Given the changes in the global landscape, with the Trump Administration hostile to the Paris Agreement, it is important for us to be in the loop in the work that needs to be done to prepare for its implementation. This is not a time for despair or for being depressed but a time to do our homework and advance solutions to the climate change challenge. It is a time not to retreat but to actually be audacious on what we can to overcome this challenge.
This is a time to enact an energy mix that would set us on a path to a low-emissions economy, reducing and eventually eliminating altogether our reliance on coal and increasing the share of renewables in our energy mix.
It is time, as Senator Legarda has also emphasized, that the CCC must prioritize the completion of the local climate change action plans (LCCAP) of all the 1,634 local government units: “This is crucial because LGUs are the front-liners in our fight against climate change. They are the ones who can determine how their community is affected by climate change. The location of the community, the direct impact of climate change, and the risks posed by extreme weather events are crucial in crafting a climate change action plan.”
Related to this, it is time also to institutionalize Project Noah, which will be terminated by the end of the month. Science and Technology Secretary Boy de la Peña’s statement assures us that Project Noah’s work will now be done by Pagasa. The transition must be seamless as it is not an option to have a vacuum, now that our disaster season is all year long.
Finally, we must be serious about protecting and enhancing our forests. I am glad that President Duterte gave an order to relevant agencies, led by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, to impose a national total log ban “with no exceptions”.
We already have a total log ban on cutting of natural forests, imposed by President Aquino through Executive Order No. 23 issued in 2011. Should the ban now be extended to cutting of trees for infrastructure and real estate development? Should it be extended to cutting off of industrial forests, to trees planted specifically for harvesting? If we did this, let’s make sure we know the environmental benefits retained versus the economic impacts. If there are serious economic impacts, but the benefits are immense, we can still proceed with the ban but make sure we mitigate the economic consequences with targeted strategies.
For sure, a ban on cutting of trees for roads, rail systems, and buildings is doable as these projects can be designed integrating and around existing trees. But stopping harvesting of industrial trees has livelihood and investment consequences. It will also result perversely in incentives for illegal logging as there would be a sharp diminution of wood supply in the country.
In any case, I am happy where we are now on climate change. I want to thank President Duterte for exercising great leadership on this even as he asked the right questions that made many of us uncomfortable.
The country should of course be very grateful to Senator Loren Legarda for her vision, political will, and endurance. Acting CCC vice chairman Vernice Victorio, and Commissioners Manny de Guzman and Noel Gaerlan did good work here. Secretaries Gina Lopez, Pernia, Piñol, Diokno, Dominguez, Yasay, and Cusi also rose up to the occasion. I know personally that Cabinet Secretary Jun Evasco, including his colleagues Undersecretary Gloria Mercado and Assistant Secretary Evelyn Cruzada (among others) played crucial roles to get us where we are.
And of course, we must appreciate the work of the front-liners in the bureaucracy and Philippine delegation – former and current CCC officials who worked on this like Sandee Recabar, Arnold Belver, Railla Puno and Alex Gamboa, other government officials like Department of Agriculture’s Alice Ilaga and Neda’s Kat Capiroso, our diplomats like Val Roque and Elaine Laruan-Hernandez, and civil society allies who kept on pressing no matter the ups and downs.
Our work on climate change has been rightly called a whole-of-nation approach. On this issue, we are one united Team Philippines.
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