ADB pleased with RP's aggressive push for mitigation mechanism Vs. climatic changes

Japan notes surge in carbon credit applications worldwide – consultant

DAVAO CITY – A consultant of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said the agency has been pleased with the slew of mitigation actions undertaken by the Philippine government saying that the move was “only fitting for a country so vulnerable also to typhoons and other issues on climate change”.

Kenjiro Suzuki, ADB consultant on clean development mechanism and sustainable infrastructure division, also disclosed to reporters that Japan has noted a surge in applications for carbon credits for various projects from developing countries worldwide.

“It's not only in Southeast Asia but worldwide, where people are getting to be more aware of developing projects to mitigate the impact of climate change,” he said.

In the Philippines, he said the ADB has committed a sizeable amount already to help fund the emerging undertakings of the government to put up infrastructure and projects aimed at reducing the risk of the communities to the increasingly unpredictable changes in weather patterns, especially against typhoons where the Philippines is one of the most visited and damaged, countries in the world.

Suzuki, who joined the panel in the regional consultation on October 22 here on clean energy development initiated by the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Philippine Information Agency (PIA), did not cite projects of the Philippine government that it funded although he has been mentioning the rehabilitation efforts in the aftermath of the typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng and the new push for more environment protection measures.

The other project it was funding was the shift in the uee of the light bulbs in the households and industries with the more cost-efficient energy-saving compact flourescent lamps (CFLs), which the DOE would soon offer a bulb-to-CFL exchange project to the households.

“The Philippines is doing great in coming up with mitigation measures against climate change especially that it is the most vulnerable,” he said. “The Philippines is, in fact, much more advance than any other [developing] countries in adapting measures to mitigate the effects of climate change.”

He said that the ADB has been “mainstreaming” climate change as a major funding section of the bank, alongside with the major funding for such items as infrastructure and government. That means, he said in his presentation earlier in the consultation at the Grand Men Seng Hotel here yesterday (Thursday), that projects along the line of climate mitigation and risk reduction would have major funding commitment from the bank.

“The bank sees the major need of reducing the impact of climate change,” he said.

The major role of the climate change allocation would likely help boost the widening clamor of developing countries for more and greater financial assistance from the rich countries to cushion the climatic devastation of the largely agriculture economies of the former and the increasing dislocation and deaths of their poor residents during natural calamities blamed on abrupt changing weather patterns.

“It's a good move of the ADB to mainstream climate change in their funding assistance to developing countries,” said Davao City Councilor Leonardo Avila III, the chairman of the council committee of the City Council and the vice chairman of the Task Force on Climate Change that Mayor Rodrigo Duterte created recently.

“The developed countries should give more. In fact, what the ADB would give is still ours, because this is a loan which we pay anyway,” he said. “The rich countries should give more assistance because we are the victims here, not the culprits in the carbon emissions and other greehouse gases that have damage the earth's atmosphere.”

The climatic changes have been devastating much of the agriculture of the developing countries, he said. “which are also highly dependent on the output of this sector”.

Also, he said, “the world's poor are also in the developing countries which must suffer from the onslaught of natural calamities. These are the people that live in the esteros, the canals, the riverbanks, mountain sides, the coastal areas, who are those first affected by typhoons and floods and who have to go hungry with every calamity”.

He said the local task force on climate change was yet to meet soon to thresh out the details of their plans.