KATOWICE, POLAND 14 December 2018 – Climate Change Commission (CCC) Secretary Emmanuel De Guzman on Wednesday, December 13, relayed the Philippines’ strong call for “urgent and ambitious action in the context of climate justice” at the high-level segment of the 24th Conference of Parties (COP 24) under the United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC) happening here.

Secretary De Guzman, who heads the country’s delegation to the climate talks, appealed to world leaders to ramp up climate action efforts and “exhibit leadership and deliver on commitments” to counter climate change.

The two-week conference in Katowice aims to gather countries to agree a rule book on how to enforce action to limit further warming of the planet under the 2015 Paris Agreement.

“We must heed the call for urgent and ambitious action in the context of climate justice, Secretary De Guzman said. “We must believe science. The decades of inaction and delay must end here in Katowice. Changing together for a resilient future should start here and now.”

The Secretary said that the best available science “mandates us to deliver on our commitments, with utmost urgency and equity.” Any attempt to backslide on commitments or rewrite the Convention and its Paris Agreement should be rejected.

A key report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in October released a stark warning to limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius to avoid the worst impacts of climate change such as the increasing risk to drought, flood, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people. World leaders have only 12 years to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 45% of 2010 levels if they want to limit global warming to 1.5C.

Secretary De Guzman stressed that together with the Climate Vulnerable Forum nations, the IPCC Special Report on 1.5C “affirms the Philippine advocacy and moral resolve” to achieve the 1.5C goal set in the Paris Agreement.

“Ensuring environmental integrity is critically important. To this end, we need to establish a transparent, real time global accounting system for climate actions supported by “state of the art technology,” he said. “The gravity of the climate change problem obliges us to pursue the 1.5 climate ambition together.”

The Philippines, he said, is prepared to leapfrog to more affordable, scalable solutions from renewable energy sources to achieve a more resilient economy.

“We are ready to leapfrog to a green economy. But first and foremost, our people must survive to thrive,” Secretary De Guzman said.

Secretary De Guzman enumerated the Philippines has taken to fight climate change, saying that the Philippines national laws are “unequivocal in mainstreaming adaptation and disaster risk reduction in the national and local development plans, programs, and budgets.”

He talked about pioneering in climate change legislation with the Climate Change Act of 2009, and the country’s domestic climate finance, the establishment of the People’s Survival Fund for local adaptation measures, the legislation of renewable energy law and a Green Job Act.

To date, the country is formulating the energy efficiency and conservation law and a national transport policy. The Philippines, he said, is resolved to pursue a low-carbon development pathway although we emit only less than half of one percent of the global emissions, essentially “survival emissions.”