March 19, 2018. On March 15 to 20, 2018, the Climate Change Commission (CCC) is conducting a series of workshops for planning and budget officers of various government agencies to orient them on the process of Climate Change Expenditure Tagging (CCET), which aims to track, monitor, and report climate change projects, activities, and programs (PAPs).

The CCET aims to serve as an effective basis for allocating and prioritizing government resources by generating timely statistics and baselines to evaluate the impact of climate public expenditures. It is mandated by Joint Memorandum Circular 2015-01 between the CCC and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), enabling oversight for the agencies to track, tag, and analyze climate change-related expenditures.

 “Our workshop today intends to re-orient government instrumentalities on climate budgeting and tagging; clarify the responsibilities of national government agencies, as mandated in the National Climate Change Action Plan (NCCAP); and train officers on the system of Online Submissions of Budget Proposal (OSBP),” Deputy Executive Director Romell Antonio Cuenca of the Climate Change Commission explained.

Cuenca also said that the participants will also be capacitated in accomplishing their Quality Assurance and Review (QAR) forms to address the low turnout of submissions, as well as to identify focal offices within the agencies for climate change.

Moreover, Cuenca mentioned the successful push of the Philippine leadership of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) in setting a more ambitious goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius during the 2015 climate negotiations, and on how other countries have viewed the Philippines as a model of resilience.  

 “Our presence is given prominence in the negotiations in recognition of our expert negotiation skills and for our strong stance to make known the difficulties that CVF-member countries are experiencing due to climate change. We pushed hard and earned the support of many developed countries where it was agreed that efforts will not stop after reaching the 2 degrees Celsius target, but to continue until it is further brought down to 1.5 degrees,” Cuenca said.

“Other countries are looking at our approaches in addressing the impacts of climate change, and the CCET is one of them. Let me express then my sincerest appreciation to the participants here today whose role is very instrumental in our primary objective of enhancing our country’s resilience against climate impacts,” Cuenca added.

On March 15, the CCC was able to train 112 officers and staff of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and another 90 participants from Government-owned and Controlled Corporations (GOCCs) today. The workshop for national government agencies is slated for March 19 and 20, 2018.

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