Accelerating Resilience and Climate Change Adaptation: Strengthening the Philippines’ Contribution to Limit Global Warming and Cope with its Impacts

Toby Melissa Monsod, Sara Jane Ahmed and Golda Hilario
Additional contact information
Toby Melissa Monsod: School of Economics, University of the Philippines Diliman
Sara Jane Ahmed: School of Economics, University of the Philippines Diliman
Golda Hilario: School of Economics, University of the Philippines Diliman
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Adrian R. Mendoza

No 202105, UP School of Economics Discussion Papers from University of the Philippines School of Economics

Abstract: In its first Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to the Paris Agreement, the Philippines committed to a GHG emissions reduction/avoidance of 75 percent for the period 2020 to 2030, referenced against a projected business-as-usual cumulative emission for the same period. However, the numbers do not add up, critical sectors such as forestry, which is central to the country’s climate change response, are excluded, and government is unconditionally committed to just 4 percent of that target. This begs the question of how the NDC squares with the country’s high level policy clarity and urgency on climate action, including the requirement to infuse all development plans and policies with it. A resetting of the NDC may therefore be warranted so that both national imperatives for climate risk resilience and climate smart development and global mitigation requirements are better served: an NDC that is based on first principles, with programs and measures anchored on adaptation/resilience and driven by their impact sustainable development rather than by GHG emissions reductions per se. This is not the standard ‘decarbonization’ path but a path that recognizes that highly vulnerable countries with relatively small carbon footprints per capita like the Philippines are likely to do more for global efforts to reduce the extent of climate change and cope with its impacts if they build robust community ownership for climate action and leverage opportunities based on their own comparative advantages; one comparative advantage of the Philippines is the biodiversity of its marine and coastal resources. This approach also recognizes that climate change impacts will be dire even if global warming is successfully limited to 1.5 degrees. Thus adaptation and resilience are imperatives for all countries and national contributions that are organized to support these efforts will be vital.

Keywords: Climate change; Climate policy; Development Policy; Emissions; Philippines; ASEAN (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O21 O53 Q54 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42 pages
Date: 2021-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-ene, nep-env, nep-his and nep-sea
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published as UPSE Discussion Paper No. 2021-05, August 2021

Downloads: (external link)
https://econ.upd.edu.ph/dp/index.php/dp/article/view/1541 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:phs:dpaper:202105

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in UP School of Economics Discussion Papers from University of the Philippines School of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by RT Campos ().