PH pushes stronger global agenda for climate action at PRECOP27 in Kinshasa

The Philippines pressed anew for stronger global agenda for climate action for developing vulnerable, at-risk states at the PRECOP27 Meeting in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Robert E.A. Borje, Vice Chairperson and Executive Director (VCED) of the Philippines’ Climate Change Commission (CCC), stressed the importance of reaching agreement and urgent collective action to address climate change and its impacts. He pointed out that developing nations suffer the most while contributing the least to climate change.

“PRECOP27 in Kinshasa provides parties and partners a vital opportunity to discuss at length what is important for all in order to make significant headway in addressing climate change and its impacts, particularly for developing at-risk and vulnerable states like the Philippines,” said Borje.

On adaptation, Borje said that the Philippines pushed for fast-tracking finance, technology and capacity development to build adaptive capacities, improve resilience, and reduce vulnerabilities of developing countries, in accordance with the Global Goal on Adaptation.

On mitigation, the Philippines stressed that emissions avoidance must be part of the mitigation action to accelerate just transition to low carbon development in developing nations, while underscoring that the global Mitigation Work Programme must be operationalized with due regard for developing countries’ need for accelerated provision of support for just transition.

On the other hand, for climate finance, the Philippines pointed out that the New Collective Quantified Goal must include the key elements of transparency, responsiveness, and scale. The Philippines likewise emphasized that climate finance must be accurately reported while being needs-based, and commensurate to the need of potential recipients.

From the $100 billion climate finance commitment of developed countries under the Paris Agreement, the New Collective Quantified Goal must set a higher target for climate finance to help implement climate change-related strategies and measures.

With a view to realizing climate justice for vulnerable and at-risk developing nations, the Philippines underscored that access by least developed and developing countries to financial mechanisms must be streamlined and simplified.

On loss and damage, the Philippines raised concern that least developed and developing countries can no longer absorb and afford the cost of further losses and damages due to climate change and its impacts.

In this regard, the Philippines argued that there must be an agenda item on loss and damage, as well as dedicated space to discuss the operationalization of the Santiago Network.

The Santiago Network is established to catalyze technical support of organizations, bodies, networks and experts for developing countries to avert, minimize, and address climate change-related loss and damage.

The Santiago Network is targeted to be fully operationalized by 2023.

Additionally, the Philippines underlined that dedicated discussion space must be provided for the financing for loss and damage, and the governance structure of the Warsaw International Mechanism as established to implement approaches to loss and damage. All of this is in line with the Paris Agreement and the Glasgow Climate Pact, among other international frameworks and commitments.

The Democratic Republic of Congo, in partnership with the Arab Republic of Egypt as the incoming COP27 Presidency, and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), convened 60 countries in Kinshasa for PRECOP27 to advance the discussions on major climate issues ahead of COP27.

The CCC, as the National Focal Point to the UNFCCC, represented the Philippines in said preparatory meeting for COP27.

The PreCOP27 was held on October 3 to 5, 2022 in Palais de Peuple in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo.

COP27 will be held on 06 to 18 November 2022 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.