Shortly after his proclamation as President, Rodrigo Duterte did one of the most controversial things in his controversy-filled Presidency. He declared that he—Duterte is wont to speak in terms of himself rather than his administration—would not honor the UN-sponsored treaty on climate change signed in Paris in December 2015 by over 160 countries and territories. He offered a two-part rationale for his decision.
The first part of President Duterte’s rationale for his administration’s refusal to honor the Paris treaty related to the place of the Philippines and other developing countries in the chronological order of development of the world economy. The second part relates to the cause-and-impact relationship of a reduced carbon footprint on the future development of the Philippine economy.
The US, Germany, the United Kingdom and the other industrial countries went through an Industrial Revolution—from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries—in the process spewing out millions and millions of tons of carbon emissions. Duterte’s thesis is that they should shoulder almost the entire burden of reducing the decrease in global carbon emissions to the target level, viz., a maximum 2 degrees centigrade above the pre-Industrial Revolution level; the developing countries should, he believes, be made to bear only a small part of the burden because they joined the industrialization game much later.
Apart from the truth that for mankind’s program nations should not dwell on the past, Duterte has failed to grasp the fact that in proportional terms a 20 percent-of-carbon-emissions commitment by the US and other leading countries—particularly China, Japan and India–-is of far greater impact on the global environment than the 70 percent commitment that the Philippines has made under the treaty. Besides, can it be said that all the advances and innovations made possible by the Industrial Revolution did not benefit the rest of the world economy? Surely, the combustion engine, steel-making electrical conduction, the telegraph etc.—all of which were developed with the use of carbon-emitting production techniques—benefited the Philippines and other developing countries also.
As for the second part of President Duterte’s rationale for his decision to not honor the Paris climate-change treaty—that the growth of the Philippine economy will be hindered by this country’s commitment under the treaty—three things bear pointing out to the Chief Executive. These facts are (1) that the timeline for the fulfillment of the 70 percent commitment is fifteen years, i.e., 2030, (2) that the Philippine economy showed during the period 2012-2015 that it is capable of GDP (gross domestic product) growth in excess of 6 percent and (3) that steady improvement has been taking place in the energy-supply mix of the Philippine economy, with solar and wind power—especially the former—increasing their shares of the mix. With sound policymaking of the economic planning and fiscal authorities, fulfillment of the 15-year timeline need not seriously hurt the growth prospects of the Philippine economy.
Furthermore, President Duterte failed to factor into his I-will-not-honor decision the facts that most of today’s Philippine GDP is accounted for not by smokestack industries but by service industries such as BPO (business process outsourcing) and that the present Philippine carbon footprint is accounted for largely by the transportation and energy industries? With a government-supported movement away from fossil fuels, and with progressive rationalization of the transportation sector—especially the Mega Manila transportation situation—the 2030 timeline for fulfillment of the Philippines’ Paris treaty commitment is, in my view, attainable.
Above all else, what Rodrigo Duterte has chosen to dishonor is a treaty that took all of 21 Committee on Climate Change meetings to complete and in the crafting of which the Philippines was deeply involved throughout. The treaty is by no means an overnight product and this country’s commitment was given to the UN only after exhaustive study and extensive government-private sector consultation. How unstable international relations would be if every incoming national administration repudiated every preceding-administration commitment on the basis of bias or intellectual laziness?
Finally, how will the Philippines, which is one of the world’s most environmentally vulnerable countries and which is invariably at the receiving end of international assistance, look to the international community now that President Duterte has repudiated the Philippines’ Paris Treaty commitment?
E-mail: rudyromero777@yahoo.com