QUEZON City, Philippines–Greenpeace Philippines today renewed its call for key government offices to commit to the highest possible climate ambition to create a just, safe, and green future for Filipinos. The call was made following the release of a UN report that shows new climate targets submitted by countries would reduce emissions by an underwhelming one percent by 2030 [1].
Greenpeace Campaigner Khevin Yu said: “The UNFCCC synthesis report shows that the world remains far from achieving the Paris Agreement goals. Unfortunately, the Philippines, which is yet to finalize its climate targets, is still lacking in action despite being one of the most susceptible to the climate crisis. Further delaying our targets allows polluting entities to continue business as usual and put more lives at stake.”
Greenpeace earlier joined environmental networks Aksyon Klima and People For Power Coalition in calling for more ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) [2].
While the current NDC draft has increased the overall GHG emissions reduction target to 75% from 2020 to 2030, the country’s unconditional target only increased from 2% to 2.71%. The NDC draft also failed to articulate policies and measures in the agriculture, waste, industry, transportation, forestry, and energy sectors, strategies covering cross-cutting issues, and associated technical and financial details.
Greenpeace especially urges the Department of Energy (DOE) to drastically enhance its targets. DOE, which oversees the most carbon-intensive sector, has only committed a 2.8% reduction and avoidance target from 2020 to 2030 and 12.3% from 2020 to 2040.
A 2020 report [3] showed that the Philippines may still achieve its contribution to ensuring the 1.5-degree threshold if it creates exclusions for new coal and gas starting this year, increase its renewable energy target to a minimum of 50% by 2030, and improve grid development for utility-scale solar and wind.
“DOE’s addiction to coal and continuous neglect of the public clamor to transition to renewable energy have derailed the country’s efforts to help keep global temperatures below 1.5-degrees. There is still a workable chance to overturn this situation, but DOE must act with a sense of urgency,” Yu said.
Yu also urged DOE and other key government agencies to do more to back President Rodrigo Duterte’s calls for strong climate actions [4].
“It is crucial for our national government to act on its NDC on the basis of climate justice, and not on lip service, to show other nations that the Philippines is serious about addressing the climate crisis. The President has called for accountability from wealthier nations responsible for most of the carbon emissions. These calls must be backed by commensurate national policies,” he said.
Notes to editors:
[1] The NDC synthesis report is prepared in response to the requests from COP 21 (Paris, 2015) and CMA 2 (Madrid, 2019) to the secretariat to prepare a synthesis report of the NDCs submitted by Parties before COP 26.
[2] Aksyon Klima and People For Power Coalition February statements.
[4] Duterte called for stronger climate commitments at UN Summit last September
Media contact:
Angeli Cantillana
Communications Campaigner, Greenpeace Southeast Asia – Philippines
[email protected] | +63 998 595 9733 or +63 995 419 1496