PH backs climate initiative

Robert Borje, vice chairman and executive director of the Climate Change Commission (CCC). TMT FILE PHOTO

By Kristina Maralit, Manila Times

October 10, 2022

THE Philippines renewed its call for a stronger global initiative on climate change during a meeting of stakeholders ahead of the Conference of Parties (COP27) climate summit in Egypt next month.

In the PreCOP27 summit held in DR Congo last week, Robert Borje, vice chairman and executive director of the Climate Change Commission (CCC), stressed the importance of reaching an agreement and urgent collective action to address climate change and its impacts.

"PreCOP27 in Kinshasa provides parties and partners a vital opportunity to discuss at length what is important for all in order to make significant headway in addressing climate change and its impacts, particularly for developing at-risk and vulnerable states like the Philippines," he said, adding that developing nations suffer the most while contributing the least to climate change.

On adaptation, Borje said the Philippines pushed for fast-tracking finance, technology and capacity development to build adaptive capacities, improve resilience and reduce vulnerabilities of developing countries, in accordance with the Global Goal on Adaptation.

On mitigation, the official stressed that emissions avoidance must be part of the mitigation action to accelerate just transition to low carbon development in developing nations.

Regarding climate finance, he pointed out that the New Collective Quantified Goal must include the key elements of transparency, responsiveness, and scale.

It emphasized that climate finance must be accurately reported while being needs-based and commensurate to the needs of potential recipients.

From the $100 billion climate finance commitment of developed countries under the Paris Agreement, the New Collective Quantified Goal must set a higher target for climate finance to help implement climate change-related strategies and measures.

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With a view to realizing climate justice for vulnerable and at-risk developing nations, the Philippines underscored that access by least developed and developing countries to financial mechanisms must be streamlined and simplified.

On loss and damage, the Philippines raised concern that least developed and developing countries can no longer absorb and afford the cost of further losses and damages due to climate change and its impacts.

Borje argued that there must be an agenda item on loss and damage, as well as dedicated space to discuss the operationalization of the Santiago Network.

Targeted to be fully operationalized by 2023, the Santiago Network is meant to catalyze technical support of organizations, bodies, networks and experts for developing countries to avert, minimize, and address climate change-related loss and damage.

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Additionally, the Philippine government underlined that dedicated discussion space must be provided for the financing for loss and damage, and the governance structure of the Warsaw International Mechanism as established to implement approaches to loss and damage — all in line with the Paris Agreement and the Glasgow Climate Pact, among other international frameworks and commitments.

The Democratic Republic of Congo, in partnership with the Arab Republic of Egypt as the incoming COP27 Presidency, and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, convened 60 countries in Kinshasa for PreCOP27.

CP27 will be held on November 6 to 18 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.