Noy signs climate change fund law, cuts red tape in disaster management

President Aquino has signed a law creating a P1-billion (about $24 million) The People’s Survival Fund (PSF) to combat the effects of climate change, Climate Change Commission deputy head Mary Anne Lucille Sering said yesterday.

The law is meant to fund climate-adaptation projects in a country battered by about 20 typhoons a year that cause large-scale deaths and damage, Sering added.

Philippine officials as well as international experts have said the growing intensity of the annual typhoons were a result of climate change.

“Now, we have the means to make our communities safer against the intensifying effects of climate change,” Sering said in a statement.

The law, signed Friday, would use the survival fund to bankroll projects in water-resource management and boost forecasting and early warning systems for climate-related hazards, she said.

It would also be used to guarantee risk insurance for farmers in case of crop damage, Sering added.

The measure aimed to make villages and communities “crisis-proof.”

The PSF centralizes funds from both the government and the private sector and directs them to where need is paramount. It also keeps politicians away from it.

Sering said the PSF may be augmented by donations, endowments, grants and contributions. “Now, we have the means to make our communities safer against the intensifying effects of climate change,” she added.

The PSF was pursuant to Republic Act 9729 or the Climate Change Act of 2009.

“We already have identified our strategic priorities in accordance with the national framework and what we have to d now is to ensure that the local actions or programs actually fit in,” Sering said. –Fernan J. Angeles with AFP