MANILA, July 17, 2019 — More local governments will receive training on local climate change action planning this year, the Climate Change Commission (CCC) reveals today as the Pre-SONA forum concludes in Davao City. This year’s rollout of the Communities for Resilience or CORE Modular Training Program for local government units (LGUs) will commence in August. “It’s a good time to resume training LGUs following the assumption of newly elected local officials many of whom demonstrate a strong resolve to pursue climate action and environmental protection,” Climate Change Secretary Emmanuel M. De Guzman said. More than 80 LGUs are expected to benefit from the training and to deliver enhanced Local Climate Change Action Plans (LCCAPs) which the Climate Change Act of 2009 asks of every LGU. Based on Department of the Interior and Local Government’s latest count, 1073 LGUs now have LCCAPs, a hundred fold increase from 137 in 2015. “There is greater awareness now among local authorities on the importance of LCCAP in ensuring community resilience to climate change and sustainability of local investments,” said CCC Strategic Partnership Division Chief Alexis Lapiz. CCC and DILG are set to issue this year a joint memorandum circular to LGUs on establishing the quality assurance review system for LCCAP. This year’s first wave of CORE training in August will benefit all LGUs in Yolanda Corridor. The second wave will assist vulnerable coastal municipalities in Luzon in September, while the last wave shall help muslim and indigenous peoples communities in Mindanao in October. “We give preferential attention to the new poor in Yolanda Corridor, coastal communities more vulnerable to rising sea level and salt water intrusion, and indigenous peoples whose resilience to extreme weather events are compromised by weak and vulnerable livelihoods,” De Guzman said on the priority target areas for this year’s CORE rollout. Since the launch of its CORE Program in 2016, CCC has trained 124 LGUs on enhancing LCCAPs and 133 faculty members from state universities and colleges across the country on standard modules for mentoring local planners. They include modules on climate and disaster risk assessment, greenhouse gas accounting, climate budget tagging, and PSF project proposal development. CORE trainings are expected to be in full swing next year to cover the rest of the country. “Networking state universities and colleges and higher education institutions is key to the sustainability of CORE as a capacity building program for LGUs. This is why we are forming multi-stakeholder consortiums among NGAs, SUCs, private universities, and research institutes.” De Guzman said. “This way, we strengthen the cooperation between national and local governments and the science and academic community on mainstreaming climate change adaptation and mitigation in local development planning,” he added. “As we celebrate in October our 10th year anniversary as an institution, CCC endeavors to present more knowledge and learning exchange platforms for our LGUs so they can readily apply adaptation solutions and good practices and strengthen the resilience of our communities which are at the forefront of climate change impacts,” De Guzman said. To sustain peer-to-peer learning among LGUs on climate change adaptation and mitigation and disaster resilience, CCC and DILG are jointly holding the 3rd National Convention on Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction during the national observance of the Climate Change Consciousness Week in November.
MESSAGE Strengthening local risk governance is key to strengthening disaster risk reduction and management (DRRM) in the country. Therefore, in observance of the National Disaster Resilience Month, the Climate Change Commission (CCC) calls for greater cooperation between national government agencies and local government units in enabling and facilitating risk-informed local development planning, emergency preparedness and response planning, and impact-based forecasting and multi-hazard early warning for early and effective community action. As the climate emergency exacerbates disaster risks and threatens to erode our hard-earned development gains, the CCC will be relentless in our efforts to ensure the integration and coherence of climate action and DRRM at all levels in the country. With this greater task at hand, the resolve of our President Rodrigo Duterte to uplift the quality of life of the Filipino people and to build the resilience of our communities to climate change will keep us in the right direction. His marching order is very clear: Making the Philippines climate-resilient and disaster-ready is a top priority of the government. SECRETARY EMMANUEL M. DE GUZMAN Vice Chairperson and Executive Director Climate Change Commission MANILA 09 July 2019
The Climate Change Commission (CCC) strongly supports the call of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte for ASEAN countries to play its active and leadership role in addressing climate change in the global community and stand for climate justice. In his statement during the 34th ASEAN Summit Plenary in Bangkok, Thailand early this month, Pres. Duterte urged ASEAN member countries to make developed countries accountable for climate change, and to assist adapt and build our resilience by advancing initiatives that care for the people and the environment. “Cooperation is key. We highly support the President’s call upon ASEAN countries to join forces in calling out industrialized nations to counteract the threat of climate change. We need to send a very clear signal to the international community that ASEAN leaders are taking decisive climate action,” CCC Secretary Emmanuel M. De Guzman said. De Guzman stressed that the contribution of countries to climate change, and their capacities to survive its consequences, varies enormously. With innovation of their more advanced mechanisms, developed nations tend to emit more carbon footprints than those of the developing ones. Furthermore, with little to no resources, vulnerable and developing countries will find it unviable, if not difficult, to catch up from these fast-progressing nations. This shows the need for developed countries to provide technologies and investments, in the form of climate finance, to developing countries as part of their mitigation efforts. The most vulnerable countries, like the Philippines, that are least responsible for the climate crisis always carry the heaviest burden. In the recent Global Peace Index 2019 report, Philippines was listed as the most vulnerable to climate risks in terms of its overall natural hazard score, followed by Japan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and China. “We maintain that those with historical responsibility must shoulder the far greater burden of acting faster, sooner, and with far bigger accountability of keeping the long-term temperature goals to no higher than 1.5 degrees Celsius. Otherwise, it's all hypocrisy from rich countries that have benefited the most from the burning of fossil fuels which heightened climate change,” he added.
PASIG CITY 11 June 2019 – Highlighting the need to mobilize climate finance to enable the translation of the country’s climate goals and needs into action, the Climate Change Commission (CCC) urged financial institutions to provide innovative solutions and investment models that will spur financing on green, climate-smart, and sustainable projects during the Roundtable Dialogue on Climate Finance held recently at the Discovery Suites, Ortigas Center. The dialogue organized by the CCC with the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Secretariat brought together senior representatives from the government, banking sector, private sector associations, multilateral and bilateral agencies involved in the mobilization and delivery of climate finance. Discussions focused on the role of public finance and private sector investments in the implementation of the country’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to the Paris Agreement, which is now being finalized through a whole-of-government-and-society approach being facilitated by the CCC. Mr. Daniele Violetti, Director for Finance, Technology and Capacity Building of the UNFCCC Secretariat, emphasized that 2019 is a critical moment for countries to raise targets ahead of implementation starting 2020. “It is our last opportunity to enhance action in the pre-2020 period. It also hounds the roles of the new rounds of NDCs, making 2019 the year to ensure that these new or updated NDCs reflect the increased ambition needed to meet the objectives of the Paris Agreement,” he said. In urging financial institutions to ramp up financing for climate change adaptation and mitigation, Climate Change Secretary Emmanuel M. De Guzman said that the government is addressing the shortage of risk information in the country in order to de-risk investments. “We are working on the establishment of a National Integrated Risk Information System, an integrated platform that will converge all available vulnerability and risk information in the country. This will be made accessible to all stakeholders, including the financial and private sector,” De Guzman said. “In addition to that, we are also assisting the Office of Civil Defense in developing loss and damage registry and protocols for valuation and validation, which could provide the insurance sector with a better picture of risk prevalence,” he added. Climate Change Commissioner Rachel Herrera, National Focal Point to the Green Climate Fund (GCF), noted that climate finance is currently limited in terms of availability. “There is no other recourse but to be strategic in terms of funneling in climate finance from various sources and channeling them to those who need it the most,” she said. Herrera said that the CCC, as the Philippine National Designated Authority (NDA) to the GCF, is seeking funding under the Readiness and Preparatory Support Program of the GCF to establish a monitoring and verification system of climate finance flows in the Philippines. Herrera also shared that the GCF Technical Working Group, a group established by the CCC to review and assess the technical merits of the funding proposals submitted to the NDA, is now deliberating two multi-country funding proposals that aim to leverage GCF funds in order to attract more private sector investments through equity sharing and de-risking of renewable energy projects. “This is an indicator of the private sector confidence in investing in the Philippines for energy efficiency and renewable projects,” she said.
Makati City, Philippines 10 June 2019 – “We are now living in a period of exponential transformation. We’re seeing the beginnings of a radical change in the world’s energy system,” Secretary Emmanuel M. De Guzman of the Climate Change Commission (CCC) said as he urged chief executive officers to join the green energy revolution during the CEO Forum on Financing Government Energy Efficiency Projects held in Dusit Thani Manila recently. Citing a report released by the International Renewable Energy Agency, De Guzman said that the decade-long trend of strong growth in renewable energy capacity continued in 2018. “As total global renewable energy generation capacity reached 2,351 gigawatts at the end of last year, renewable energy now accounts for a third of global power capacity ,” he noted. Attended by business leaders, government officials, and civil society, the forum which was organized by the European Union-supported Access to Sustainable Energy Programme and the Department of Energy aims to facilitate discussions on key issues and challenges in implementing energy efficiency projects. In his keynote address, De Guzman challenged business leaders to invest in clean and green infrastructure and practices including energy efficiency and renewable energy. He noted that the energy sector has consistently accounted for a significant percentage of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions and, therefore, offers the highest mitigation opportunity for the country’s Nationally Determined Contribution for the Paris Agreement. “Energy efficiency is the easiest and often cheapest way to reduce the need for expansion of power generation. And with the country’s energy demand projected to increase by 80 percent between 2017 and 2040, improving energy efficiency in the building sector would be our best course to reduce emissions,” De Guzman said. De Guzman added that renewable energy can provide a major share of the Philippine electricity mix in a stable and reliable manner and at the same time increase energy self-sufficiency and reduce supply-related risks. “There is no debate that coal is the most carbon-intensive of all fossil fuels. It brings serious public health, ecological, and economic risks to the country,” he explained. “Renewable energy now presents the biggest opportunity for local investment,” he added.
