From Lima to Paris: The year ahead for climate action

The Philippines welcomed the New Year in the wake of Seniang (Jangmi), which claimed more than 50 lives and caused flashfloods and landslides in Visayas and Mindanao during the last days of 2014.

For the past few years, we have struggled with storms instead of enjoying the holidays—just last December, typhoon Ruby (Hagupit) whipped at the country even as climate negotiations were underway in Lima, Peru.

The Lima talks barely delivered at a time when poor and vulnerable countries like the Philippines are already bearing the consequences of inaction. Even worse, our own delegation wavered in defending our own interests at a crucial point in the talks.

Lost and damaged?

In the second to the last meeting, a junior diplomat of the Department of Foreign Affairs stated that the country will allow loss, damage and human rights to be left out of the final decision, even though—ironically enough—we were struck by a typhoon for the third consecutive climate conference. These points did make it to the Lima Call for Climate Action, albeit only affirmed in the introduction.

Loss and damage refers not just to the impacts of climate-related extreme weather events, like super typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan), but also slow-onset events, like sea level rise and coral bleaching, which are beyond the reach of adaptation and mitigation efforts. It involves not just funding but also technology and other support.

Last year’s delegation championed this concept along with other poorer countries at the previous conference in Warsaw, Poland, which took place immediately after Yolanda. And throughout the Lima climate talks, other Filipino negotiators have repeatedly stressed the importance of loss and damage and have worked behind the scenes to get it into the final decision.

Mitigation commitments

The Lima decision also marks a turning point in the talks as poor and rich countries alike are now called on to put forward their own pledges to cut emissions by the middle of this year.

Under the climate convention, richer countries historically responsible for climate change are obligated to act on it first. These national commitments will form the building blocks towards the creation of a new global climate deal in Paris, France in December.

In the wake of the landmark joint commitment of the United States (the biggest historical emitter) and China (currently the biggest emitter) to curb their emissions, the Philippines has joined other poorer countries in announcing that they will submit their own mitigation pledges.

Our government plans to start public consultations on the commitments by the end of this month. Key agencies must start working with experts on solid and ambitious targets which must go beyond 2020, as the new climate deal will require. A serious reconsideration of the more than forty coal plants in the pipeline must also follow, given that the Philippines touted its renewable energy policy and low-emission development pathway in Lima.

And if we are ambitious enough to do our fair share in solving the climate crisis, we must also continue calling on richer countries, which have more funds and other resources, to do their own, even before 2020. The country with several others also supported a long-term mitigation goal, but this must be translated into the Paris deal.

Adaptation and finance

Our core issues of adaptation and finance did not gain much traction in Lima, and concrete action on the bigger agenda items under these has been delayed, to be considered more carefully in the countdown to Paris.

One of the key asks of team Philippines is for adaptation, and financial support for this, to be part of the national commitments. But the Lima decision focused only on mitigation pledges, and support for adaptation was mentioned only in the introduction to the Lima decision, much like loss and damage.

On a positive note, the Philippines is mobilizing its own funds for adaptation. It has identified billions of funds in last year’s national budget for adaptation and even mitigation, although there is room for improvement in how exactly the government tags projects and programs.

Moreover, one billion pesos was allocated in this year’s budget for the People’s Survival Fund, which aims to supplement local-level adaptation activities, although President Aquino has put off signing the law’s Implementing Rules and Regulations for years now.

However, as our negotiators point out, the country will need much more funds to roll out comprehensive risk assessments and other vital adaptation plans. Rich and poor countries alike have finally pledged over $10 billion to the Green Climate Fund for poor countries, but this pales in comparison to the 2009 commitment of $100 billion per year by 2020.

Hope amidst heartbreak

The world’s governments left much work to be done this year, even as more people from the Philippines and the rest of the world have called for them to step up to the task in the midst of extreme heat, rising seas, and heartbreaking disasters.

This New Year, the first thing to do here at home is for the country’s team to get its act together before next month, when lower-level negotiations resume in Geneva, Switzerland.

The Philippines championed human rights and even assumed the leadership of the Climate Vulnerable Forum, a group of 20 countries from all over the world, in the hopes of making new alliances. With our early backtracking on loss and damage and human rights, however, our team may also have to work to get back in the good graces of its peers.

Rep. Walden Bello and the organization Focus on the Global South quickly organized a forum soon after the Lima climate talks, on December 20. The forum delved not just inoto the Philippine position but also the delegation’s dynamics in Lima and going into Paris.

That dialogue, however painful, must continue with the rest of the Philippine delegation and civil society next week, during the official briefing led by the Climate Change Commission. And given that several representatives observed the talks themselves in Lima, Congress must also resume its task of holding our delegation accountable.

We deserve nothing less. — TJD, GMA News