QC is first LGU to implement Kyoto protocol

Quezon City is the country’s first local government unit to reduce environmental pollution through the Clean Development (CDM), an arrangement under the Kyoto Protocol that allow industrialized countries to invest in emission reducing projects in developing countries as an alternative to what is generally considered more costly emission reductions in their own countries.

Mayor Feliciano Belmonte Jr. has recently signed a memorandum of agreement with Federico Micheli, president of the Italy-based PANGEA Green Energy and Jennifer Fernan Campus, head of its local affiliate for a biogas emission reduction project.

The agreement provides that gas extracted from the dumpsite can be converted into usable energy.

Belmonte said the Payatas landfill, which was converted from a dumpsite, has progressed to become the most pioneering project of a LGU in the country, especially now that the city government has entered into a contract that allows the harvest of methane gas to reduce carbon emissions.

The project proponents, Frederika Rentoy, head of the city’s Environment Protection and Waste Management Department (EPWMD) and Col. Jameel Jaymalin, chief of the Payatas Operations Group, noted that while addressing the health and safety of the people near the landfill, the project has huge impact in mitigating the adverse environmental effect of biogas emission.

"The project demonstrates the environmental, social and economic benefits of the use of appropriate technology for the productive utilization of biogas from solid urban wastes," Jaymalin said.

The project will be supervised and coordinated by the city government through the Payatas Operation Group and will run for 10 years.