Philippines remains optimistic as Paris talks near end

By SHAIRA PANELA

PARIS, France– Will the Philippines achieve it’s goal at the Paris climate talks? “Definitely, yes ,” according to Philippine delegation spokesman Antonio La Viña.

Philippine delegation watches out for the “red lines” the 1.5 degrees C reference, and the liability clause on the loss and damage for the final leg of the climate negotiations in Paris, France.

A new text of the draft agreement is set to come out 9:00 am Saturday, December 13, Paris time during the Paris Committee. Parties will be given a few hours to pore on the document.

The French presidency of the conference said that parties will convene at 12 noon. But said the next meeting could be between 12 noon, 3:00pm, 6:00pm, 10:00 om, and 12 midnight at the latest.

“After we get the text, we have to decide whether to accept it or not,” La Viña said during a press briefing on Friday afternoon.”Some parties will have some problems with it. The Philippines will look and see if we still have problems with it.”

The main red line now in the current text is to keep the 1.5-degrees C option that’s there and to take away the liability and compensation exclusion in the loss and damage (section), La Viña also said.

 

 

The human rights and ecosystems integrity are among the issues the Philippine delegation would consider as resolved in the current text.

“We still want some operative text on human rights… But we can work with the current preamble text. We just want to include an operative text on human rights,” he said.

“I think we can declare victory already on what we have on human rights and ecosystems integrity,” he added.

Climate finance remain contentious, particularly the adaptation and pre-2020 finance, as it is commonly one of the last things to be resolved at every climate change summit.

La Viña added that the Philippine delegation is “very happy” with the text on technology, and “could live with” the current provisions about capacity building.

The Philippine delegation currently has not scheduled any bilateral meetings as they see no significant problems with the most part of the text.

What the delegation is anticipating are the possible scenarios after the draft text will be released at the Paris Committee.

 

 

After the release of the text and after the Parties were able to pore on it, the Parties will be called for a plenary meeting to adopt or not the draft agreement.

A possible worst case scenario is that the talks be extended further to another day, said La Viña.

However, La Viña said that it is more likely that after the bilaterals, the conference president will offer an approval (at some point) if he got an approval from the major players​ on the document and “bang the gavel” on it.

While there might still be countries who might object based on “point of order” (trying to reverse an approval), but that scenario still has to be seen, he also said.

He also commented that no country is accusing the French presidency of siding with the developed countries, but rather than it is being said to be taking sides with the developing countries.

 

photo credit: Imelda Abano