PHL calls for real action vs climate change

Climate change satellite image. / Wikipedia Photo

MANILA — An official from the Philippines’ Climate Change Commission (CCC) urged nations to act on climate change and do away with blaming.

During her speech at a high-level ministerial dialogue in Bonn, Germany, CCC Vice-Chairperson Lucille Sering called other delegations to “do what we need to do.”

She asked world ministers attending the dialogue to “simplify the goals and not be trapped by agenda that tilt the balance of fairness, one that tramples the principles of this convention.”

Sering headed a delegation to the high-level Ministerial dialogues on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Actions.

The high-level ministerial dialogue was organized by United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change as part of the climate negotiations.

Nations that ratified the Kyoto Protocol send a delegation to the annual Conference of Parties (COP) to discuss initiatives to address climate change both on a national and global scale.

Last year, COP 19 produced the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action.

An Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action was established and tasked to develop a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force that would be adopted at COP 21 in Paris, France.

The dialogue is expected to build confidence and momentum behind the process of preparations of fair and ambitious nationally determined contributions by all Parties under the Durban Platform.

Views on political implications of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) findings, both for mitigation and adaptation, will also be discussed during the event.

Sering also challenged other nations to fulfill their carbon reduction pledges.

“Pledges should not remain as such,” she said. “Ambition should not remain as such. It should be at all costs reached.”

She likewise called for the avoidance of conditionalities.

If conditionalities can’t be avoided, she said these should be based on what is required, fair the true meaning of the principle of common but differentiated responsibility.

“Let us take this great opportunity to send a clear signal to the world that finally, we are united to address climate change, described as the greatest development challenge,” she said.

“Let’s take this opportunity to correct ourselves, that if man is the reason for the increase in temperature, hence resulting to climate change, then man therefore has the power to resolve it,” she continued.

Another high-level dialogue will be held in conjunction with the twentieth session of the COP in Lima, Peru in December this year.