Advocates present Climate Justice Agenda ahead of SONA; Call on Marcos Jr to “turn words into action”

 

Quezon City, 18 July 2024—Ahead of President Marcos Jr.’s upcoming SONA, Greenpeace Philippines calls on his administration to put its  promises into action, and adopt a Climate Action Agenda that can secure the survival and wellbeing of Filipinos now and in the coming decades. The group says that, as a start, Mr. Marcos must ensure the swift passage of the Climate Accountability (CLIMA) Law.

Recently, the Philippine government achieved its bid to become the host of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Loss and Damage Fund (LDF) Board[1]. While this hosting is mostly symbolic, the move has served to reinforce the current administration’s apparent ambitions to be a recognized leader on climate justice in the international stage. 

“However, the measure for the administration’s and President Marcos’s credibility on tackling this issue will be both in the policies that will be prioritized and instituted nationally, as well as in the positions the government will champion and advance in international negotiations in the coming months,” Greenpeace Campaigner Jefferson Chua said. “Mr. Marcos must seek accountability from fossil fuel companies, make these climate polluters pay for loss and damage, call for and steer the country towards a full, fair, fast, and funded fossil fuel phase out, and redirect the economy towards greener and more equitable systems.”

Buklod Tao, Inc. Founder and President Manuel “Ka Noli” Abinales shared their community’s experience from climate impacts, echoing the calls for accountability, “Since the 70s up until this decade, our community residing at the banks of Nangka and Marikina Rivers has been vulnerable to climate change. The river has grown and it has been constantly eating away the ground where dikes are constructed. This cycle of repair and wall collapse just adds to the cost our government spends.

“While vulnerable communities like us continue to suffer from climate impacts, oil and gas companies only get richer from their profits. We hope that our government recognizes this injustice, as they continue to spend the nation’s resources while climate polluters do not even contribute to the repairs.”

WR Numero Senior Researcher Cid Manalo presented a survey they recently conducted on how Filipinos view some of the most pressing environmental issues, “Filipinos are generally anxious about the negative consequences of climate change to their family and immediate communities. The Philippine situation is a concretization of the double-burden experienced by people from the developing world whose anxieties are furthered and made more complex by the intersection with worries brought by the lack of support to basic social services.

“The collective inaction (of those in power) towards the climate crisis, through unmet global commitments and targets is not helping ease these worries. Immediate, lasting, local climate solutions that continuously integrate the needs and critically involve our communities provides one of the paths towards easing both anxieties.”

“Beyond words and symbolic gestures, climate justice must be the top priority of the government,” Greenpeace Campaigner Virginia Benosa-Llorin said, “Mr. Marcos must adopt a Climate Justice Agenda that can serve as a framework for environment and climate protection that is grounded on human rights and corporate accountability. The most important thing he can do right now is to speed up the passage and ensure the effective enactment of the Climate Accountability (CLIMA) Bill (HB9069)[2] and begin the process of litigating carbon majors for climate impact damages to the Filipino people.”

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Greenpeace Philippines is calling on the Marcos administration to establish a Philippine Climate Justice Agenda that will:

1. Exact climate accountability from fossil fuel corporations;

2. Demand and secure payment for climate loss and damage;

3. Steer the country towards a full, fair, fast and funded fossil fuel phase out; and

4. Redirect the economy towards greener and more equitable systems.

Concretely, what President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. can do now is:

1. Speed up the passage of, and enact, the Climate Accountability Bill;

2. Start the process of litigating carbon majors for climate impact damages to the Filipino people;

3. Review and cancel memorandums of understanding (MOUs) from line agencies such as the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) with companies that perpetuate the climate crisis and who likewise deny their responsibility in the climate crisis;

4. Champion the Climate Damages Tax and other innovative sources of finance to ensure not just adequate funding, but, importantly, payment from corporations, for loss and damage;

5. Stop all plans for nuclear energy, fossil gas expansion and other false solutions; and

6. Enable policy reforms to reshape the economy to enable climate justice and community resilience.