Legarda Files Resolution Declaring Climate and Environmental Emergency

Deputy Speaker and Lone District of Antique Representative Loren Legarda on February 17 filed a resolution at the House of Representatives urging the declaration of a climate and environmental emergency and ensuring enhanced and coherent climate actions in the executive and legislative agenda of the government.

Titled “A Resolution Declaring a Climate Emergency and Environmental Emergency and Calling for the Mobilization of Government Agencies and Instrumentalities and Local Government Units towards the Effective Implementation of Environmental, Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation, and Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Law in light of the Global Climate and Environmental Emergency,” House Resolution No. 724 supports the earlier call for the declaration of climate emergency by the National Panel of Technical Experts (NPTE), an advisory body of the Climate Change Commission (CCC).

In the resolution, Legarda said that “there is a growing consensus that the entire planet is under climate emergency and that failure to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and to build the adaptive capacities of communities to climate change would lead to unprecedented loss to human society, environment and global economy.”

Legarda added that reducing the adverse effects of climate change will be critical policy objectives, following the findings of 5th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which stated that climate change will increase the poverty rate between now and 2100 and will jeopardize sustainable development.

The resolution encourages the implementation of the CCC’s National Climate Risk Management Framework (NCRMF) for national government agencies and local government units (LGUs) to produce baseline studies and conduct climate risk assessments that consider future climate impacts and scenarios.

It also urges the government and LGUs to urgently mobilize and effectively implement existing laws on environmental protection, climate change adaptation and mitigation, and disaster risk reduction and management in the country.

The resolution has been referred to the House Committee on Climate Change.