A PHILIPPINE lawmaker said nations that are most vulnerable to climate change should band together in pushing for more direct compensation systems from the world’s biggest polluters.
Albay Rep. Jose Ma. Clemente S. Salceda said he hopes that vulnerable countries will form a united front in the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Egypt this month to demand accountability from major polluters like the United States and the European Union.
“International aid and green financing are not enough,” Mr. Salceda, a former co-chair of the UN Green Climate Fund, said in a statement on Sunday. “There has to be some form of compensation to the most vulnerable and affected countries.”
He recommended the creation of a global “quick response fund,” similar to the Philippines’ calamity fund, with the money to be provided “by countries according to their pollution contributions, and accessed by countries as soon as climate-related disasters affect them.”
He said nations “like the Philippines that are the most at-risk due to its impacts have a moral responsibility and the moral ascendancy to fight for the principle of loss and damage.”
The 2022 Global Risk Report ranked the Philippines as number one among 193 countries in terms of risk because of climate change.
“If we are soft on this position, we throw other climate-vulnerable countries under the bus,” he said. “So, we have to be strong on loss and damage.”
Mr. Salceda said international climate law defines “loss and damage” as the permanent loss or reparable damage caused by climate change including “extreme weather events like typhoons, as well as slow-onset events such as sea-level rise”. — Kyanna Angela Bulan