March 14, 2018. The Climate Change Commission (CCC) marks the first anniversary of the Senate’s concurrence to the Philippines’ ratification of the Paris Climate Change Agreement today, March 14.

The unanimous approval of Senate Resolution No. 320, which was sponsored by Senator Loren Legarda, was the final step before the Philippines became an official signatory to the historic international agreement on April 22 last year.

Since the country’s entry into the agreement, the CCC has been facilitating a bottom-up approach to developing the country’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), which will communicate the country’s ambition for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
 

The NDC will be the country’s roadmap on how it intends to transition towards a low-carbon economy. It shall provide convergence points where the government, the business sector, and other stakeholders could further collaborate and invest in implementing climate-smart initiatives across all sectors.

“The true test of our country’s commitment to the Paris Agreement will be in its implementation,” Climate Change Secretary Emmanuel De Guzman said. “This is why we are ensuring that our NDC has the approval and support of the sectors where the impacts of the roadmap will be greatest,” he added.

In 2017, the CCC conducted a total of 15 consultations, validation meetings, and workshops on the NDC sectoral targets and adaptation and mitigation options for the agriculture, waste, industry, transportation, forestry, and energy sectors.

“Our NDC shall convey mitigation as a function of adaptation, which is the country’s anchor climate action strategy. We want to to optimize the co-benefits of adopting a low-carbon development pathway while strengthening our communities’ resilience against the effects of climate change,” De Guzman explained.

An initial draft of the NDC is already at hand and is set for submission to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change this 2018.
 

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