MANILA – Sen. Loren Legarda wants to step up the “climate ambition” by limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
This is to meet the meet the goal set in the Paris Agreement, said Legarda, who chairs the Senate climate change committee.
According to her, the current Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) of Parties would not limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The current set of NDCs would result in warming of at least 3 degrees Celsius.
“This is simply unacceptable. We have an urgent need to enhance these NDCs. We must be bold. We need to step up climate action and ambition,” Legarda said during the We Are Stepping Up Climate Ambition Forum organized by the Climate Action Network International and World Resources Institute in Bonn, Germany.
The senator said “hundreds of millions will face an existential threat if we fail to act on climate change decisively.”
She added that the Philippines is committed to enhance its NDC through “enhanced policies” to meet its ambitious climate targets.
“The Filipinos people and the Philippine economy will not and should not be held hostage by stranded coal assets. The public and our economy will no longer pay for poor and weak energy policy,” said Legarda. “We will level the playing field by removing subsidies and policies that perpetuate market distortions that allow the continued growth of the high polluting coal industry.”
Legarda noted that the country’s Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law has increased coal tax from P10 per metric ton to P50 per metric in 2018.
TRAIN will further increase the coal tax in 2019 to P100 per metric ton and in 2020, P150 per metric ton./PN
