A Bicolano lawmaker on Friday commended President Marcos for securing almost $14 billion worth of pledges from renewable energy (RE) investors in his three-day state visit to Beijing.
Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte said such investments would boost the Philippines goal to reduce its carbon footprint by 75 percent via pursuing cash-intensive programs, amid budgetary constraints.
“The President has walked the talk on decarbonization with his coup in Beijing of hauling in close to $14 billion in investment pledges from Chinese companies, which will give a big boost to our country’s ambitious goal of GHG (greenhouse gas) emission reduction and avoidance of 75 percent over the 2020-2030 period and the switch to the use of 35 percent of renewables in our total power requirements by 2030 and a higher 50 percent energy mix by 2040,” Villafuerte said.
Villafuerte, the National Unity Party (NUP) president, said “Mr. Marcos’ push for RE investments to achieve a greener economy and reduce our country’s carbon footprint was in sync with his steady pitch in all his foreign trips since he assumed the presidency for climate justice, by securing funding support from the world’s affluent economies yet worst GCG polluters for programs that would help high-risk developing nations like the Philippines shift to cash-intensive RE sources and better adapt to worsening natural disasters set off by planet heating.”
Such pledges for RE ventures made up almost half of all the investment plans totalling $22.8 billion that Chinese investors had presented separately to President Marcos during his 48-hour visit.
“And the President managed to pull off this coup in his three-day Beijing state visit with investment pledges from Chinese RE investors worth close to $14 billion, or equivalent to a whopping P700 billion, given that no such financial aid for climate justice is apparently coming anytime soon from the world’s biggest GHG emitters or carbon polluters, judging from the agreement—or lack of it—that was reached at the end of last year’s COP27 in Egypt,” Villafuerte said.
Villafuerte was referring to the outcome of the 27th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP27) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which was held last Nov. 6-18 at the resort city of Sharm el-Sheik in Egypt.
At the end of that summit, wealthy countries agreed for the first time ever to put up a “loss and damage” fund for vulnerable nations like the Philippines that bear the brunt of climate change, but avoided making firm commitments on how much exactly would be given and when such would be released to the intended beneficiary-countries like the Philippines, he said.
COP27 ended with an agreement for country-participants to create a “transitional panel” that would work on the “loss and damage” details in time for formal presentation at COP28, which is due in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) this Nov. 30 to Dec. 12, he said.