RP Calls for Drastic Reduction of Greenhouse Gas Emissions

MANILA, April 17 (PNA) -- The Philippines has urged the international community to adopt the necessary measures to reduce drastically global greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 80 percent if low-lying and archipelagic countries like the Philippines are to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

Presidential Adviser on Climate Change Secretary Heherson Alvarez said this was the instruction of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo given to him before he left last month for the March 29-April 28 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Bonn, Germany.

"The President has given me instruction to move for an 80 percent cut (of greenhouse gas emissions) which we filed and re-substantiated with the resolution we filed in Bonn recently," Alvarez said.

The Bonn proposal will be presented and voted upon by nations at the Conference of Parties (COP-15) in Copenhagen this December.

Other archipelagic countries, including Vietnam and Indonesia, have expressed strong support for the Philippine proposal, Alvarez said.

He said it has been observed that recent typhoons that hit the Philippines were stronger and more devastating than previous ones. The annual damage wrought by typhoons in the Philippines from 1975 to 2002 was placed at P7.9 billion.

Alvarez briefed the President on the Philippines' call for the international community to reduce greenhouse gas emissions during her visit to the Quezon City Controlled Disposal Facility at Barangay Payatas this morning which was attended by 142 barangay chairmen of Quezon City.

Also with the President was Environment Secretary Lito Atienza.

The President was also briefed by Mayor Feliciano Belmonte on the operations of the Quezon City waste disposal facility which boasts of a Biogas Emission Reduction Project.

The project also provides free electricity to two major streets in Barangay Payatas and the Plantsahan ng Bayan, where residents iron their clothes for free.

Belmonte said Quezon City generates 1.7 metric tons of garbage daily, 30 percent of which are segregated and recycled immediately.

The biogas project harnesses energy from biogas produced from waste comprising mostly of methane and carbon dioxide.

"The President said methane is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide, the number one contributor to climate change," Alvarez said.

The Quezon City biogas plant has become one of the "best practices" being replicated by other LGUs in the country.

Atienza said the President has been conducting Friday visits to different parts of the country to underscore the urgency of protecting the ecosystem, and at the same time check on the compliance of LGUs with Executive Order 774, which directs LGUs to put up materials recovery facilities (MRFs) to help reduce the country's greenhouse gas emission by as much as 50 percent this year.

"Our laws said that every barangay should have its own MRF," Atienza said.

So far, Atienza said the National Capital Region (NCR) has the highest rate of compliance with EO 774 at 42 percent compared to the national average of only 8 percent.

Last December, the President signed EO 774 calling on the LGUs, non-government organizations (NGOs) and the public in general to help protect the ecosystem by undertaking massive tree planting, coastal clean-up and marine protection, garbage segregation, composting and the establishment of sufficient materials recovery facilities (MRF) across the country. (PNA)