THE Philippines will push for financial and technical support from industrialized countries to address problems brought about by climate change. Less developed countries, like the Philippines, are most prone to climactic changes and are estimated to be losing at least 2.5 percent of their local output, measured as the gross domestic product (GDP), each year due to such changes.
The Philippines will lead the so-called Vulnerable Twenty (V20), a group of countries that are highly prone to the adverse effects of climate change, in an inaugural meeting in Peru this week.
Finance Secretary Cesar V. Purisima will lead the V20 as chairman in the inaugural meeting, where it is expected that the V20 Action Plan will be adopted, outlining a concerted response to strengthening resilience and mitigating the impact of climate change.
Member-countries will also prepare for the V20’s concerted contribution for the COP21 Meeting in Paris this December.
The targeted sources of funding for the V20 Action Plan are industrialized countries, which account
for the biggest greenhouse-gas emissions causing climate change.
Members of the V20, on the other hand, include least developed, low-income and middle-income countries that lack resources to combat the adverse effects of climate change and are most prone to disasters because they are either surrounded by large bodies of water, are mountainous, and, therefore, prone to landslides, or have arid land.
Aside from the Philippines, other V20 members are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Barbados, Bhutan, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Kiribati, Madagascar, Maldives, Nepal, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Vietnam.
“Climate change is real—there’s simply no debate about it. Its devastating effects reach deep, jeopardizing sustainable economic growth, threatening food security and worsening the quality of life in many climate-vulnerable countries,” Purisima said in a statement.
“What is even more unfortunate is that least developed, low-income and middle-income countries that contribute the least to climate change are the ones that suffer the most from its adverse effects. So it is true that this is a matter of social justice—we, the most vulnerable, call for accountability and global action on climate change. We look forward to charting a concerted path forward for a matter of plain survival,”
he added.
The inaugural meeting of the V20 will be attended by finance ministers and other ranking officials of finance ministries across the V20. It will also be attended by representatives from the World Bank Group, the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and advanced economies, like France, Germany, Japan and the United States.