Green groups urge Aquino to review ‘skewed’ climate aid

Environment advocates have challenged the Aquino government to review financial packages for climate projects, saying majority of the funds are loans for reducing emissions instead of grants that will help Filipinos cope with climate change. “The country is exposed to greater climate risks, yet it is also vulnerable to predatory financing from funding institutions seeking profit from climate-induced tragedy," said Red Constantino, executive director of the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (ICSC). He cited a study by the Environmental Management Bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (EMB-DENR) that showed 54 percent of funds committed to climate change projects from 1992 to 2018 were earmarked for mitigation efforts, which is mainly the problem of industrialized nations and not developing countries like the Philippines. “Governance chaos reigns over the administration of climate finance that has entered the Philippines," according to a summary of the report Financing Adaptation or Financing Chaos, which Constantino presented at a policy forum Wednesday. “This has skewed domestic climate action towards the wrong priorities. More international climate finance has gone to mitigation efforts instead of adaptation activities," the report said. “Worse, it appears most of the resources allocated for adaptation programs and projects have come in the form of loans." Of $2.08 billion in climate funds, loans amounted to $1.078 billion compared to $1.006 billion in grants, according to the EMB-DENR study presented by Constantino. For adaptation projects, loans outpaced grants by more than $200 million. Adaptation to the negative impact of changing weather patterns is a crucial issue for environmentalists, as typhoons annually devastate many parts of the Philippine archipelago. The trend has placed the country in the Top 10 of the most vulnerable nations worldwide that suffer from climate change in recent years. Amendments to IRR Constantino also pushed for amendments in the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of the law that created the Climate Change Commission, saying the government should be coordinating efforts among various agencies instead of implementing projects. He said the Commission could best serve as a “knowledge hub" for various groups engaged in climate change advocacy, especially in seeking financing for community and local government projects designed to protect vulnerable sectors such as women and rural villagers. Climate Change Commissioner and former DENR Undersecretary Lucille Sering admitted she had not paid much attention when she signed the document and agreed with Constantino’s proposal, saying, “If it is not amended soon, I refuse to be part of the IRR." She also stressed the need to work with government institutions such as the Department of Finance and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, saying many of their staff are unaware of the Climate Change Act even though they play a critical role in climate finance negotiations. “They have a bias for mitigation kasi iyon ang may returns," she said. Such projects often involve renewable energy efforts such as hydroelectric dams and methane recovery from waste. “We are probably not insisting on the adaptation side," Sering added. Last year, damage and losses from tropical storms Ondoy and Pepeng (international names Ketsana and Parma, respectively) reached $4.38 billion, the equivalent to 2.7 percent of the country's total economic output, according to a study led by the World Bank. National Survival Fund Along with the aid group Oxfam, ICSC pushed for the creation of a National Survival Fund “that will democratize access to and create predictable long-term finance streams for urgent adaptation and disaster risk reduction projects and programs benefiting the most vulnerable, particularly women in agriculture." Constantino said they have obtained the support of prominent legislators, including Senator Juan Ponce Enrile and Liberal Party spokesman Rep. Erin Tañada for the initiative. Former national treasurer Leonor Briones expressed support for the proposed fund but advised the climate campaigners to “be as detailed as possible" in making estimates on the budget needed to finance adaptation projects. She also urged government and donor agency representatives who attended the forum to pool their resources for climate change projects, and for the private sector to upscale their efforts at the national level instead of limiting their social work to their base of operations. “We can sing about the whales, we can write poems about trees, we can explore the love lives of mosquitoes but if we are not prepared to spend money for the environment, it’s all just poetry and songs," she said. Instead of foreign funding, Briones said environment groups could exert pressure on the Aquino government to reduce the estimated “P100 billion in losses in exemptions and perks to the private sector" in order to increase the national budget. She said climate campaigners have to pinpoint priority projects and “translate (them) into bite-sized, doable, and time-bound" programs that can be incorporated in the executive budget by August or the legislative development assistance fund by December. “Laced with toxins" Reacting to the fund proposal, Commissioner Sering said it would be “difficult" for their newly created office to coordinate financing efforts for climate projects. “We’re not yet capable of doing that at this point," she said. Her colleague, Commissioner Yeb Saño, said their office lost its temporary personnel after the change in administration last June 30 and they are still waiting for directives from President Aquino, who chairs the Climate Change Commission under the law. During the forum, Saño sided with the climate campaigners and said “financial flows from north to south are laced with toxins." A former official of the environmental group WWF-Philippines, Saño said he was prepared to “arrest the chaos in the commission in climate funds" during his six-year term. –VS, GMANews.TV