For Filipinos, September marks the beginning of the Christmas season. For climate advocates, it marks the beginning of the countdown to the next climate negotiations.

The next conference, known as COP29, will take place in mid-November in Baku, Azerbaijan. It also marks a critical time for the Philippines, which has finalized its plans for reducing its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in recent months through the Philippine Energy Plan and the NDC Implementation Plan.

One of the priorities at COP29 is to enable all countries to improve on their current mitigation plans, specifically the NDC or the Nationally Determined Contribution. The Philippines has the opportunity to further strengthen its pledge to reduce its emissions, including setting a net-zero target.

‘Net-zero’ means the GHG emissions we produce is the same as the amount being removed from our natural environment. To date, our country remains the only one in Southeast Asia to not have such a target. But recent developments indicate that it might be time to change this. 

‘Evidence-based’ approach

The Philippine government highlights the need for an evidence-based approach to implementing climate strategies, as it should. This is critical for mitigation, which is comprised of three elements: removing emissions, including through forests; reducing emissions, through a shift to renewable energy; and avoidance, or preventing pollutive activities from happening in the future.

At first glance, the latest numbers show the challenges our country would face if it wants to achieve net-zero. The 2020 GHG inventory under the NDC Implementation Plan shows that the country’s forests and other natural sinks remove emissions that amount to only about 10% its total emissions. 

The current government also prioritizes avoidance over emission removal or reduction, claiming that it represents a higher impact for mitigation than the others. Net-zero cannot be achieved without a strong emphasis on both reduction and removal; this indicates that a net-zero target is not among the highest priorities for climate policymakers in the country.

It must be noted that the forestry and other land use (FOLU) sector is not included among the sectors with specified policies and measures under the NDC Implementation Plan. Back in 2021, some agencies mentioned that as forests still remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, it wanted to prioritize for securing investments for mitigation other economic sectors that are producing emissions, like energy and transport.

Aligned with its emphasis for an evidence-based approach, the government is working together with several international partners to help set its direction on climate mitigation policy. For the past few years, it has been working with the likes of the ADB, World Bank, and the UNDP to determine its long-term strategy for mitigation and specific policies on climate financing, such as carbon tax. 

Why not soon?

While it is understandable why the Philippines does not have a net-zero target yet, a closer look into other recent developments indicate that there is justification for he readiness of the country in pursuing this goal. 

First, the weak capacity of forests to remove GHG emissions has to be taken into consideration with other ecological issues and factors relevant to the Philippine context. In the past few months alone, we have seen cases of forests and other parts of our natural environment being polluted or destroyed in favor of allowing big businesses to operate.

Compared to our neighboring countries, the Philippines’s forest cover pales in comparison, with less than 30% of its land area having forest cover; this is less than other Southeast Asian countries with comparable land areas, such as Malaysia and Vietnam. 

It can be argued that with a stronger implementation of policies for ecologically-sound forest protection, conservation, and expansion, the Philippines would be more capable of reaching net-zero and reducing emissions, not to mention the countless other benefits forests bring to communities and local wildlife. 

Aside from the importance of evidence-based approach, another point that the government frequently emphasizes is that adaptation is the Philippines’s anchor strategy against the climate crisis and mitigation solutions would be operationalized with their benefits for adaptation in mind. 

There is arguably no sector that embodies the links between adaptation and mitigation than forestry. Using this argument, the fact that actions addressing the forestry sector are emphasized in the National Adaptation Plan but not in the mitigation-centric NDC does not seemingly add up. Nonetheless, the NDC Implementation Plan states that FOLU will be considered as an addition for the next NDC.

It is understandable that our country does not have the same set of responsibilities for mitigation as the high-polluting countries like the United States do. This is aligned with the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, which are important parts of the climate negotiations. Yet other developing countries, including our ASEAN neighbors, set ambitious net-zero targets anyway.

There is clearly strong interest in setting a net-zero emissions target and policy in the Philippines among policymakers themselves. The presence of multiple government agencies during the recent launch of the Net Zero Initiative consortium is an indicator of this. This is also evidenced by a statement within the latest version of the hotly-debated Low Carbon Economy Investment Bill.

The Philippines has the tools to set at the minimum a conditional net-zero target by 2050; after all, almost its entire mitigation target in predicated on being conditional, or requiring international support to be properly implemented. 

But in the discussions on mitigation, it cannot just be the voices of the government and the private sector that should matter. Net-zero is not the end goal in itself, but rather the beginning of our country’s path to true decarbonization. – Rappler.com

John Leo is the National Coordinator of Aksyon Klima Pilipinas and the Deputy Executive Director for Programs and Campaigns of Living Laudato Si’ Philippines. He has been representing Philippine civil society in UN climate and environmental conferences since 2016. He has been a climate and environment journalist since 2016.