Climate change bill signed into law today

MANILA, Philippines - President Arroyo will sign into law today a bill creating the Commission on Climate Change that will integrate concerns related to the issue and actions needed in government policy formulation, development planning, and poverty reduction programs.

The new law will be the first legislation in Southeast Asia to fully integrate principles of the Hyogo Framework, a 10-year blueprint for reducing risk from disasters worldwide.

The commission, to be headed by the President, will be the sole policy-making body on climate change and will also be tasked to coordinate, monitor and evaluate programs and action plans of government on the climate crisis.

It will provide technical and financial support to local research and development programs and projects.

To mobilize resources for adaptation, government financial institutions will be mandated to provide preferential financial packages for climate change-related projects.

The legislation is one of several measures that the Philippines, one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries, is preparing to reduce the human and economic costs of disasters associated with natural calamities like storms, earthquakes, floods and landslides.

A recently released Mortality Risk Index (MRI) by the United Nations’ International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) ranks the Philippines as 12th among 200 countries most at risk from tropical cyclones, floods, earthquakes and landslides.

Sen. Loren Legarda hailed the scheduled signing into law of the bill that she authored in November 2007.

“Through this measure, we can speed up the capacity building for local adaptation planning, implementation and monitoring of climate change initiatives in vulnerable communities,” Legarda, who chairs the Senate Oversight Committee on Climate Change, said.

“This piece of legislation is in line with my strong belief that now is the time to take bold actions in addressing the greatest humanitarian challenge of our time, which is climate change,” she said.  – Aurea Calica, Iris Gonzales