THE POWER for People Coalition (P4P), composed of civil society and people’s organizations, consumer groups, faith groups, communities and advocates for climate justice and clean energy, demanded a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) that cements the transition to a sustainably-powered and climate resilient Philippine society.
It said the draft NDC, as it was conveyed last to stakeholders, is far from this initiative.
The Climate Change Commission (CCC), on Feb. 3, headed by the office of the chair-designate Finance secretary presented the country’s latest NDC draft under the Paris Agreement of 2015 that included commitments of the energy sector, which is among the biggest contributors to the country’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
On Feb. 13, absent its promised sector-specific consultations post Feb. 3, the CCC communicated to stakeholders a revised draft of the NDC document.
Despite increasing its GHG emissions reduction from 30 percent in December 2020 to 75 percent, the draft NDC and the recent consultation provide no assurance that the Philippines is contributing its fair share of mitigation efforts to the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement.
The P4P said the current NDC target asserts only a negligible 2.71 percent of unconditional efforts in the overall.
With a measly unconditional target despite having a high mitigation potential, and with barely any articulation of how it plans to secure climate financing, the group said the Philippines seems to have no qualms in turning a blind eye to climate realities and going about business-as-usual ways.
Also, it said there are neither a clear scientific basis or transparency as to the assumptions, methodologies, and tools used for reduction and avoidance commitments, and the sectoral contributions adding up to the 75 percent NDC target in the newly circulated draft.
For energy, which logically must provide the biggest share of equivalent reductions among the four sectors, the plans and measures presented by the Department of Energy (DOE) in the Feb. 3 consultation are disappointing, negligible, and unambitious.
According to P4P, the department disregards the swell of resistance from communities that will be impacted by these new projects, which included Atimonan One Energy power station in Quezon, a province that residents lament as having already turned into the country’s “coal capital.”
Under its current commitments, the DOE through the NDC is condemning more communities and generations of Filipinos to heightened climate vulnerability and environmental degradation.
At the same time, it looks to also increasingly expose them to other detrimental sources of electricity especially fossil gas, with anticipated inclusion of nuclear and waste-to-energy.
An NDC that values the collective survival of the Filipino people from the climate crisis must boldly commit to the 1.5°C goal, and would find no space for coal – the dirtiest of all fossil fuels.
While P4P supports the submission of the NDC well before the 26th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, it said this timeline must not sacrifice genuine consultation with all stakeholders, and consider the suffering of millions of Filipinos from the harmful impacts of coal and climate disasters./PN
