Legarda Welcomes PHL's Commitment to Reduce Carbon Emissions

Senator Loren Legarda today welcomed the country's commitment to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by seventy percent (70%) by 2030 as part of its Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) that was submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on October 1, 2015.

"The Philippines' INDC submission is the first step in our strong commitment to work on a meaningful climate deal in Paris. I would have preferred our INDC to have some measure of non-conditionality since the aim in Paris is an ambitious climate deal. Our INDC is crucial because the Philippines is a low emitter of GHG but is among the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change," said Legarda, UN Champion for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) for Asia-Pacific.

The Philippines' INDC states that "the mitigation contribution is conditioned on the extent of financial resources, including technology development and transfer, and capacity building, that will be made available to the Philippines."

Legarda said that even without sufficient aid from the international community, the country must strive hard and work double time to reach its target.

"I believe our INDC is a call for the energy and transport sectors to take the lead in reducing emissions and for all other sectors of the economy to do the same. It would certainly be difficult to reduce GHG emissions if we will continue to approve the construction of coal-fired power plants. Government should instead encourage the business sector to invest in renewable energy instead of coal plants," she said.

The Senator said that she is hopeful the country will continue to improve on its CCA programs noting that the government has also started climate-tagging its expenditure for climate change adaptation and mitigation and will prioritize funding for adaptation to reduce the vulnerability and address the risks to the community.

The call for INDCs urges all nations to submit their individual plans for reducing emissions after the year 2020 with the objective of limiting the increase in global temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.