'RP failed to capitalize on international climate change funds'

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Foreign Affairs has been taken to task for not having information on climate change, as the Philippines failed to capitalize on international climate change funds available to developing countries.

In a presentation to the Senate yesterday, G77 countries and China led by climate change negotiator Bernarditas Muller described the increasing effects of climate change on the country as “very grave.”

“(Increasing global warming) means something very grave for the Philippines; where is global warming going?” she said.

“It goes mainly to the ocean. The country was particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels and temperatures and coral bleaching, which would destroy fish stocks.”

Under the Kyoto Protocol, a $157-million international adaptation fund is available for developing countries for projects aimed at reversing climate change. However, the Philippines has not yet set up the necessary National Implementation Entity (NIE) to access those funds.

Since last December, nine other developing countries had set up NIEs and four had had funding approved, namely Pakistan, Nicaragua, Senegal and the Solomon Islands.

“A small center like the Solomon Islands was able to do it but the Philippines is grappling blindly,” Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said before questioning DFA director Marie Yvette Banzon-Abalos about what the DFA had done.

Banzon-Abalos conceded the DFA had not requested information from our embassies in countries which had accessed funding or established NIEs.

“The issue of other countries having NIEs is a false one because climate change was more dynamic than that,” she said. 

Enrile said he’s amazed that Banzon-Abalos does not have knowledge about these events.

“Climate change has been a topic that is current around the world for so long... we are talking about national survival, it’s not a priority?” he said.

“Why are we not armed with information from you on a matter like this? That’s why you exist.”

Banzon-Abalos said in the three months she had been in her post there had been difficulties establishing who to speak with in government to begin effective work on climate change. – Amanda Fisher, Pia Lee-Brago