Keynote Speech of Senator Loren Legarda
2nd National Protected Area Conference
Sustaining Ecosystem Services and Benefits from Protected Areas
26 April 2016 | Holiday Inn Manila Galleria, Pasig City
A few days ago, on Earth Day, the Philippines and 174 other nations signed the Paris Agreement on Climate Change at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. The Philippine delegation was headed by no less than our Environment Secretary, Ramon Paje, who signed the Agreement and delivered the […]
Senator Loren Legarda called on nations to immediately ratify the Paris Agreement on climate change and stressed on the need to target the more ambitious but safer 1.5 degrees Celsius warming limit.
Legarda, Global Champion for Resilience of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), made the statement during the press conference with Ministers of the High Ambition Coalition (HAC), following the signing of the Paris Agreement at the UN Headquarters in New York on April 22.
CITING the urgency of action, Sen. Loren Legarda has pledged to push the Philippines and other vulnerable nations to ratify immediately the recently signed Paris agreement on climate change, assuring that the country is on track toward fulfilling its commitment to cut carbon emissions and ease global warming.
Legarda said that she will work on getting the agreement ratified by the Senate within the year while also calling on legislators from other countries to do the same.
“We will muster all the energy and resources within our means, sustain advocacy at the grassroots level and rally the executive and legislative branches of the government, as well as the local government units, so that the Philippines can be true to its commitment in Paris to keep global temperature rise this century well below two degrees Celsius and to drive efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels,” Legarda said.
The covenant signing happened the same day the Paris agreement on climate change was signed by world leaders at the United Nations headquarters in New York. Environment Secretary Ramon J.P. Paje signed the Paris Climate Agreement on behalf of the Philippine Government, according to the office of Senator Loren Legarda, co-head of the Philippine Delegation at the High Level Signature Ceremony for the agreement.
