VISITING French President François Hollande offered to provide a €50-million loan to help the Philippine government protect areas vulnerable to climate change.
Hollande made the offer during his meeting with President Aquino in Malacañang on Thursday.
“The loan has been made available, and projects have been identified,” Deputy Palace Spokesman Abigail Valte told reporters.
During his meeting with Hollande, Mr. Aquino said the Philippines is already pursuing sectoral reduction of greenhouse gases, the blueprint of which is expected to be completed in August.
Valte, however, said the government needs to secure “firm commitments” from various industries.
At the same time, she reported that President Aquino and Hollande also firmed up earlier agreements forged between the Philippines and France when Mr. Aquino visited Paris last year.
These agreements relate to air services; the executive program on the cultural agreement between the Philippines and France; a memorandum of understanding for academic collaboration between the Development Academy of the Philippines and its French counterpart; and the project vindicator award by Globe Telecom to Alcatel-Lucent.
Hollande on Friday took his warning about the need for funds for a landmark climate deal to a town in Eastern Samar that was devastated by a killer typhoon in 2013.
The French president arrived in Guiuan, where Supertyphoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan) made its first landfall before claiming more than 7,300 lives, after he and President Aquino launched an international appeal to back efforts to seal the climate-change accord in Paris in December.
Hollande warned that there will be no deal if wealthy countries don’t commit adequate funds to help poor nations fight global warming. “There will be no agreement concluded in Paris if the countries, the poorest countries, are not convinced that there will be a fund…which would be made available to them,” he said.
The Paris agreement isn’t expected to stop climate change, but organizers hope to secure for the first time the commitment of most countries to do something about it. Previously only rich countries have committed to limit their emissions of global- warming gases, primarily carbon dioxide, from the burning of coal, oil and gas.
The slow-moving UN talks got a boost last year when top climate polluters China and the US jointly announced emissions-limiting pledges for the Paris deal, which would take effect in 2020. The European Union and Norway have also presented climate targets.
The conference faces a major dilemma on how to raise $100 billion in yearly climate aid by 2020 to help poorer economies transition to clean energy.
Hollande chose the Philippines, which was devastated by one of the most powerful typhoons on record to hit land, to warn of the dangers of global warming and call for governments to pledge to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.
President Aquino, whose country is exposed to typhoons in the Pacific Ocean more than any other, has said previously that effects of climate change were worsening at an alarming pace, with typhoons becoming stronger, more frequent, more devastating and larger in scale.
“In the eyes of the world, Manila is a symbol of suffering and hope,” Hollande said. A climate-change accord is a way “to make sure that the world will not face global warming that would lead to even worse disasters than the ones we’ve been facing,” he said. The international appeal, named “Call of Manila,” urges the international community “to conclude a universal, equitable and ambitious climate deal…to preserve our planet as a livable place for future generations.” It says developing countries like the Philippines have contributed the least to climate change, but are the ones that suffer the most from global warming.
(With AP)
Image credits: AP/Bullit Marquez