Decarbonization is the path to sustainability and development

PARIS — Climate Change Commissioner Heherson Alvarez called here yesterday for Philippine decarbonization in support of President Aquino’s call for carbon pricing in Bonn, Germany last October 2015.

Speaking at the Philippines’ side event on Climate Smart  Development in a Vulnerable and Emerging Economy, in the ongoing climate change conference COP21 in this French capital, Alvarez stresse, “All over the world, there is a cry now to price carbon appropriately, apply corresponding taxes, and remove subsidy that makes carbon artificially cheap.” 

“And not too far from that is the well-accepted physical and economic reality that carbon is the triggering force behind destructive impacts of climate change. Carbon should not only have its common market price but must carry the additional cost of the global environmental ruin that it brings about,” he explained.

“President Benigno Simeon Aquino’s statement in Bonn, that we should price carbon, signaled a clear decarbonization policy for the Philippines,” Alvarez said.

 Aquino joined German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and other world leaders, that composed the Carbon Pricing Panel, in calling all countries around the world to put a price on carbon “to steer the global economy toward a low-carbon, productive, competitive future without the dangerous levels of carbon pollution driving warming.”

According to Alvarez, externalities are never captured in carbon pricing in Asia. 

“When carbon is priced correctly, the alternative fuels would be competitive in the energy system. The gradual displacement of fossil energy within the timeframe indicated by science could be achieved,” he said

“If your alternatives will be cheap, it will displace carbon in the market place within the indicated timeframe calculated scientifically by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),” he added.

Climate Change Commission and head of the Philippine Delegation Sec. Emmanuel De Guzman opened the side event with a statement Beyond 2016: Paradigm Framework of the Philippine INDC – Climate Change Mitigation as a Function of Adaptation.

De Guzman said that the Philippines has positioned itself towards a climate-resilient, sustainable and low carbon development path.” 

Alvarez, who was also Secretary of the Environment Department, stressed that “In order to decarbonize the country’s economy, the decision making will not be by the government alone but it can be done with the private business stakeholders alongside government policies that makes alternative energy competitive.”

According to Alvarez, “We have all the opportunity to deploy abundant, readily available alternative energy. The Philippines is abundant in alternative energy from solar, wind, hydro, and especially geothermal. The country is the second biggest producer of geothermal in the world next to the State of California.” 

Ateneo School of Government Dean Antonio La Viña delivered the Multi-Stakeholders Perspective in the Implementation of the Philippine INDC, while Redentor Constantino of the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities spoke on the Role of Civil Society Organizations and the Private Sector in the Transformational Change Towards Climate Change Mitigation and Ms. Liddy Nacpil of the Asian Peoples Movement on Debt & Development gave the INDC Perspective  of the NGOs.

“The Philippines INDC of 70% GHGs reduction measured within a period of 15 years indicated by the Philippine President will be an achievable target and opens the doorway to development with competitive low carbon energy mix,” Alvarez concluded.#