My wish this week is that the elite and media in the Philippine declare a timeout from our political conflicts. First, it is a good time for reflection given the 29th anniversary of the EDSA revolution. Recent events should be sobering to all of us, and taking some time to understand and discuss their implications would be good. The book launch tomorrow of Joe Almonte, National Security Adviser to President Fidel V. Ramos and a key player in the 1986 uprising, promises to be a good occasion for that exercise. Second, a political ceasefire would be good because the country has an important visitor this week, President Francois Hollande of France. I think we need to put our best foot forward to welcome the French President and not just because he is from an important country (this is also the first visit of a French head of state to the Philippines) but he comes on a mission related to something very critical for us – climate change.
While they will no doubt talk about other topics of mutual interest to our countries, such as terrorism and trade, Presidents Hollande and Aquino are expected to have intensive discussions on climate change and especially on how the Philippines and France can work together to make the December 2015 Paris climate change conference a success.
In January, the Philippine Daily Inquirer quoted Nicolas Hulot, Hollande’s special envoy for the protection of the planet during a preparatory visit here last month, as saying: “I believe the fact that the two Presidents—the Philippine President and the French President—can send a common message to the international community. It can be a symbol, even a spark that can mobilize will and bring us back to our senses and to reason.” French Ambassador to the Philippines Gilles Garachon also pointed out: “There’s no better place than the Philippines to say that climate change consequences are terrible. It is not just an idea of scientists. Here, it’s there. We saw that in Typhoon Haiyan”.
One of the highlights of the Hollande visit will be a side trip to the town of Guiuan, Samar, one of Haiyan/Yolanda’s hardest hit places. There, Hollande, and his entourage which includes celebrity artists Jeremy Irons, Marion Cotillard, and Mélanie Laurent, and high-level French officials Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development Laurent Fabius, Minister of State for Development and Francophony Annick Girardin, Minister of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy Ségolène Royal, and Mr. Hulot will see for themselves how the poor are the most affected by climate change, the importance of climate justice, and what the stakes are when most countries of the would come to Paris in at the end of the year to adopt a new agreement on climate change.
Another highlight of the trip is a public forum that President Hollande himself will convene in the National Museum on Thursday, February 26. Aside from our French colleagues, Secretary Lucille Sering, Vice-Chair of the Climate Change Commission, and Senator Loren Legarda will be speaking on that forum. I am honored to have been invited to speak on human rights and climate justice, speaking on this important topic with Patriarch Bartholomew I, the Archbishop of Constantinople. A panelist at the forum is Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Last December, in Lima, Peru, the UNFCCC adopted the Lima Call for Climate Action. This outcome of two weeks of negotiation, that had to be extended more than a day, is not as ambitious as it should be and has been rightly criticized by the climate justice movement and many environmental organizations. But, as I have written before: “I do not share the pessimism of many climate activists. Climate change, as an issue, requires a long-term view and, to last in engaging with it, one must be a happy warrior – with a clear head and always a hopeful heart. Bitterness and anger quickly leads to burnout and I have seen many of that in two decades of fighting climate change.”
Besides, the Lima outcome has enough to bring us to Paris where we can still increase ambition and find ideas to move us forward on the issues that deadlock countries. Indeed, Lima was designed to serve as a bridge to Paris so that success in the “La ciudad de los reyes” (The City of the Kings) will pave the way for a good outcome in “La Ville-Lumière” (The City of Light).
One good result of the Lima conference though was the spotlight given on climate justice and human rights in responding to climate change. In my view concepts like “common but differentiated responsibilities” and equity are good, and are supported by the Philippines, but they are abstract concepts that refer only to states and not to peoples, communities, families, and individuals. Unfortunately, most of the climate negotiations have been state-centered and have excluded real people, and sadly those that matter the most – indigenous peoples, local cultures, women, workers, farmers, youth, and the poor. These stakeholders do not have a voice in this process; at most, they are given a token few minutes to deliver statements to government representatives who do not listen.
That is why the Philippines pushed the envelope on inclusion of human rights text in the Lima decision. Its inclusion in the Paris agreement will open the doors of the climate change convention to the people who really matter on this issue. It will also be highly symbolic, as it was in the Palais de Chaillot in Paris in 1948 where the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted. The French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789), which as I tell my law students had a direct influence on the United States Bill of rights, is also one of the seminal texts of international human rights law.
Two weeks ago, the UNFCCC parties gathered in Geneva, Switzerland for the first of four preparatory meetings before we all come together in Paris. As in Lima, I was there as an adviser to the Philippine delegation. The meeting, turned out to be very productive. With everyone in a cooperative and trusting mode, we produced an 80 pages negotiating text, which in my view based on 20 years of climate change negotiations experience, is a good length to start with. We should be able to whittle that down to a manageable number of pages before landing in Paris. There is of course still a lot of work to do, among others more good will that must be instilled among countries and much problem-solving and imaginative solution-making that needs to be done. In the tasks at hand, the Philippines is in a unique position to work with France to make Paris the turning point for climate change.
So to President Hollande and his companions, bienvenue!
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