The Philippines’ climate change adaptation bid soared to new heights in 2012, fueled by President Benigno Aquino III’s enactment of Republic Act 10174 which established the People’s Survival Fund for such purpose.
PSF’s establishment aims to help provide long-term finance streams that will enable the country to better cope with impacts of the changing climate.
Such fund “is hereby established as a special fund in the National Treasury for the financing of adaptation programs and projects based on the National Strategic Framework,” Aquino said in RA 10174 which he signed in August.
Adaptation measures are adjustments in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or effects of these. Aquino enacted the law as he recognized Philippine communities’ vulnerability to climate change impacts.
Studies show dangers from climate change include warming temperatures, rising seas, changing landscapes, increasing frequency and/or severity of droughts, fire, floods and storms, onslaught of more climate-related illnesses and diseases, damage to ecosystems as well as biodiversity loss, he warned.
The Philippines continues prioritizing adaptation as experts warned this country is among the most vulnerable to climate change’s impacts. They noted the country faces such peril even if it isn’t among the world’s major sources of climate change-driving greenhouse gas emissions.
Mitigation measures like shifting to green production target reducing such emissions, they continued. Aquino ordered that PhP1 billion be set aside under the General Appropriations Act as PSF’s opening balance.
The PSF balance from GAA and other sources thereafter must not be lower than such opening amount and may be increased as the need arises, he said.
He noted PSF “may be augmented by donations, endowments, grants and contributions, which shall be exempt from donor’s tax and be considered as allowable deductions from the gross income of the donor in accordance with the provisions of the National Internal Revenue Code of 1997 as amended.”
“The fund shall be suppletory to any annual appropriations allocated by relevant government agencies for climate change-related programs and projects” and to budgets set for similar local government undertakings, he also noted.
Among initiatives that PSF can support are establishing forecasting and early warning systems, managing water resources and land, improved monitoring vector-borne diseases triggered by climate change and contingency planning.
PSF can also serve as guarantee for risk insurance needs of farmers as well as other agricultural workers an d stakeholders.
Climate Change Commission Vice-Chairperson Mary Ann Lucille Sering assured consultations on initiatives targeted for PSF support. “The fund must be utilized accordingly,” she noted.
She said PSF is intended “to support pro-active local approaches including integration of climate change projections into land use planning.” Such integration aims to help make communities more resilient to climate-induced disasters, she continued.
She noted lackluster developments in continuing global climate talks, and uncertainty of sources for the international Green Climate Fund, further highlight urgency for PSF.
To help further boost climate efforts in the country, CCCspearheaded in November 2012 launch of ‘Braving the Uncertainties of Weather,’ the policy brief that resulted from several risk financing and insurance-related roundtable discussions the agency organized with Oxfam and Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities.
The brief highlights need for overcoming market and operational barriers to weather index-based insurance for the Philippine agricultural sector. Such document also recommends several measures for addressing such barriers to help scale up WII in the country.
WII is a risk transfer instrument that pays out compensation to an insured farmer or fisher once a weather index like rainfall is breached, enabling this party to recover and resume productivity at the soonest time possible without having to first file a claim with the insurer.
CCC and its partners are seeking regulatory amendments that will help scale up provision of and access to WII so farmers and fisherfolk nationwide can better adapt to climate change. ”If we don’t help them, their loss will eventually impact on our food security,” Sering said.
She said CCC will help facilitate coordination between government and the private sector so both sides can discuss how to best scale up WII for Philippine agriculture which is among sectors most vulnerable to climate change’s impacts.
”About 90 percent of insurance in agriculture is still with government but the private sector is showing a lot of interest on the matter,” she noted. ICSC Exec. Dir. Red Constantino agrees with Sering that financing for adaptation nationwide hasn’t been as much as funding made available for domestic mitigation measures.
”In 2010, more money for mitigation came into the Philippines but our priority is adaptation and most funds didn’t go there,” he said. He also said available data show loans comprised 94.6 percent or bulk of the PhP73.8 billion official development assistance for funding 43 adaptation projects in the country.
”The bigger part of adaptation funds were in the form of loans – that’s wrong,” he said.
Last month, authorities also released in Metro Manila a report that can help generate informed choices on management and use of Philippine natural assets to truly promote sustainable development amidst climate change.
The report ‘A Measure for Resilience’ acknowledges the Philippines’ development gains over time but warns these can be reversed if gap between the country’s ecological footprint and biocapacity continues widening.
“We can’t afford to have a footprint larger than our biocapacity,” CCC Commissioner Naderev Saño said at launching of the report this agency, Global Footprint Network and Agence Francaise de Developpement collaborated on.
Ecological footprint represents the “area of biologically productive land and water a population requires to provide resources it consumes and to absorb its waste using prevailing technology,” Global Footprint Network noted.
“Such footprint measures humanity’s demand on nature,” the network said. The report noted biocapacity represents the biosphere’s ability to produce crops, livestock, timber products and fish as well as to uptake carbon dioxide in forests.
“It measures ability of available terrestrial and aquatic areas to provide ecological resources and services,” the report also said. Citing available data, Saño noted the Philippines already breached its biocapacity as early as the 1960s.
“Our country’s been in ecological deficit since then,” he said. He said such deficit’s been increasing ever since. “That’s over-spending,” he said. Such over-spending can only go on for so long until signs of collapse become undeniably clear, however, he clarified. “We can’t live beyond ecological limits,” he said.
‘A Measure for Resilience’ noted over-spending prevailed to such extent that by 2008, people nationwide were already using over two times the country’s capacity to provide biological resources and to absorb climate change-driving carbon dioxide emissions.
“The nation demanded more than twice what it had in available capacity,” the report said. Such situation compounded climate change threats and other challenges to the country’s bid for sustainable development, the report noted.
Experts earlier noted sustainable development is human development that’s within the biosphere’s ecological limits. [PNA]
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