Philippines hopeful for a below 1.5 degrees Celsius global warming limit

By Shaira Panela

PARIS, France–After a week of intense negotiations at the United Nations climate talks here, below 1.5 degrees Celsius as a possible target for holding the increase in global temperatures that is crucial for the Philippines and small island countries remains in play.

The group of countries known as the Climate Vulnerable Forum, led by the Philippines remains steadfast and hopeful in pushing the ambition towards a below 1.5 degrees C target in order to protect many low lying, small nations from the dangers of climate change. The call is being supported by over 100 nations, including other developed countries.

The United Nations set a formal target of 2 degrees Celsius in 2010 with the signing of the Cancun agreement.

“We sensed the high possibility of getting the reference to 1.5 degrees,” Dean Tony La Viña, spokesman for the Philippine delegation to the UN climate talks told Filipino journalists covering the 21^st Conference of Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). “It’s high stakes as some big developed and developing countries are not supportive of the under 1.5 degrees C.”

Still, Philippines, as other small nations would be pleased with the retention of the 1.5 target as an option in the final form of the agreement, La Vina said.

The UN-backed climate talks aims to hammer out a new global, legally binding deal that is to take effect in 2020.

La Vina added that between the under 1.5 degrees and 2 degrees warming target, “a few hundreds of millions of people will have to be evacuated or will die.”

For this position, Climate Change Commission Secretary Emmanuel de Guzman was commended by countries and by COP 21 chair Laurent Fabius, foreign minister of France, during a bilateral meeting on Sunday afternoon.

“We are not hardline about the 1.5 but we want the reference,” La Viña stressed, adding that the Philippines is of a view that the new agreement must be ambitious enough that requires urgent action should countries agree to keep the window to 1.5 degrees open.

“There is a lot of support for under 1.5 degrees C but there are enough ‘strong’ or ‘noisy’ countries that can block it,” he added. “But we have a 50 percent chance of getting other countries to agree on our plea of 1.5 degrees C cap.”

La Vina said that the Philippines will be pushing for its main demands in the negotiations: adoption of the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit; human rights and ecosystems integrity be protected; mechanisms on technology transfer and development, and capacity building; inclusion of loss and damage mechanism; and clarity on finance.

La Viña also said that they are hoping to finish the final text of the agreement on Thursday as promised by the French government to finalize the agreement by Friday.

He added that the Philippine delegation feels challenged and hopeful at the same time, citing that the presence of President Benigno Aquino III during the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) meeting last week helped in asserting the country’s position in the negotiations.

“We do not influence negotiations by being hardline. For every issue that we care about, we should have alternatives,” he said.

photo by: Anna Valmero

reporting by Shaira Panela; editing by Imelda Abano