Albay Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda has urged the government not to disengage but instead step up participation in climate change negotiations, both for human survival and for “urgent pragmatic considerations””•primarily economic—and access to funds, technology, and capacity building concessions in the process.
Salceda, chairman of the House Committee on Climate Change, aired his appeal after Foreign Affairs Secretary Teddy Locsin said the Philippines will reject attendance in climate change talks abroad and will pursue discussions only on the internet, and that it “will simply vote ‘yes’ to all progressive suggestions to address climate change.”
Earlier, Salceda wrote President Rodrigo Duterte, pleading for the Chief Executive to reconsider an imminent policy of non-participation in climate change negotiations.
In his letter, the lawmaker said he believes it is very important for the country to continue to engage in the deliberations, even if its pace is slow…” because the deliberations are now at ‘a critical pace of rule making’ on the methods of implementing the Paris Agreement.”
Presently, climate change negotiations now center on emission peaking allocations and developed countries are pushing to account for the carbon footprint of OFWs, tourism, and exports which are driving forces of the Philippine economy, Salceda said.
He noted that talks now focus on the “application of potential standards such as ‘environmental integrity’ and human rights compliance which can translate to impositions on export commodities and even human resources such as our OFWs, using climate change parameters.”
Section 9 (k) of Republic Act 9729 stipulates that the Climate Change Commission shall “in coordination with DFA, represent the Philippines in climate change negotiations.”
“If we don’t participate in the Conference of the Parties or COP, then we have no voice; we have no right for whatever. We cannot access funds, technology and capacity building concessions,” he added.
“Time will come when our OFWs will suffer because countries can install policies that will be disadvantageous to them and our next generations,” Salceda said.
“At this point, we need to make sense of the desperation of developed countries to keep us developing countries as markets… desperate enough to attempt re-negotiation of everything, agenda 21 and all environmental conventions, in all fora, primary of which is the UN General Assembly,” he pointed out.
President Duterte has slammed climate change conferences for “attaining nothing” and as “waste of money,” and floated the idea of the Philippines not attending the next COP conference set in Bonn, Germany this month.
DFA has announced it won’t issue air travels for its officials attending climate change forums.
Salceda said President Duterte is rightly impatient for results from the negotiations and agreements but it makes it more compelling for the Philippine voice be heard.
“For years, the Philippines has been a strong voice representing developing countries in climate conferences. If it is not represented, we lose the right and opportunity to articulate our views as victims of climate change spawned primarily by developed nations,” Salceda said in an interview.
Cost benefit-wise, the lawmaker said the benefits in participating and engaging in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiation process significantly outweigh the costs.
Known worldwide for his pioneering global climate change adaptation and mitigation, and disaster risk reduction advocacies, Salceda was elected by 156 developing countries as the first Asian chair of the Green Climate Fund of the UNFCC, an operating UN entity organized to assist developing countries in adaptation and mitigation practices to counter the threats of climate change.
As GCF chair, he said he has been “intimately involved in the negotiations for quite a long time, not least of which negotiations on finance for developing countries including the Philippines.”
But more than the money, technology and capacity building concessions we can get from Climate Change Convention and its Paris Agreement, it is the defense and assertion of the Philippines’ “• with other developing countries “•right to socioeconomic development, including peaking of its emissions, that is primarily at stake in the process, he stressed.
Salceda said the Philippines has been a recognized advocate in the negotiations of the “common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR) principle, the bedrock of developing countries’ position in the negotiations.
Since decision making is by consensus, he said, “even just one country strongly opting out of a consensus agreement will translate to no agreement.”
“That is why the Philippines, on many occasions, have used this to obtain even minimum target concessions.”
The climate convention is one of the global agreements with the most membership–more than 190 to date, and even the US “• which previously opted out “• came back to the Paris Agreement, he added.
The Philippines, Salceda said, is also a trusted partner of CG-77 and China negotiating block, as with OPEC countries and more recently, ASEAN which, for the first time, has adopted a common negotiating position mainly because of the Philippine advocacy.
Salceda said climate change conferences are very important networking events where the Philippines also gets a comprehensive overview of state of the art climate change responses all over the world and touching base with old, current and potential partners.