Climate change was on everyone’s mind at the 29th Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Thailand, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said Saturday night in arrival remarks at the Villamor Airbase.
“Every discussion that we had—you can talk about the economy, you can talk about geopolitics, you can talk about anything…You talk about fisheries, you talk about governance, you talk about anything—and the subject of climate change will make itself felt,” Marcos said.
“And so again, this is something that we all seem to have realized and we have come together to try to mitigate.”
Marcos said there would be a push by Asia Pacific countries to enforce climate agreements already in place.
Marcos arrived before 11 p.m. with First Lady Liza Marcos, former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, House Speaker Martin Romualdez, and some Cabinet members.
Vice President Sara Duterte and other officials welcomed him at Villamor Airbase, where Marcos summarized the highlights of his four-day trip.
Supply chains, food supply, digitalization, and women empowerment were also tackled during the meetings, Marcos said.
He said he found the meetings encouraging because most countries identified similar problems.
“It was a very useful and productive process because as I said, we have now a way forward for all of us members of APEC,” he said.
The President also said it was important that he had one-on-one meetings with Asia-Pacific leaders in Bangkok.
“In a sense, one of the most important things at least for me—the reason I thought that I must attend these conferences is one, that I know now—I have spoken to, I have discussed many issues with all the leaders of our region, of the Asia Pacific,” he said.
“They now know me and they know what I’m about—we have discussed—they know what the Philippine position is on several issues.”
Among the bilateral meetings the President held were those with Chinese President Xi Jinping, French President Emmanuel Macron, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacida Ardern and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
One result of these meetings, Mr. Marcos said, was that Saudi Arabiaagreed to pay the unclaimed salaries of overseas Filipinos who lost their jobs during the pandemic.
Meanwhile, Camarines Sur Rep. Lray Villafuerte on Sunday said the President’s advocacy of urgent climate action on the international stage has cast him as a champion or point person for high-risk developing economies that, like the Philippines, are seeking financial and technical aid from wealthy nations that have grown richer from their largely unchecked greenhouse gas emissions, which are responsible for for fast-rising global temperatures.
He noted that in his engagements at the just-concluded 29th APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in Bangkok, Thailand, “Mr. Marcos had strongly pushed for collective action from APEC’s 21 member-states on dealing with three urgent issues to hasten global recovery from COVID-19, and one of these concerns is climate change.”