How much to save the world?

The United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (FCCC) twenty-ninth Conference of the Parties (COP29) just ended and apparently we need One Point Three (OPT) trillion dollars (USD 1.3 trillion or P76.56 trillion) annually by 2035 to achieve our sustainability goals, to enable definitive shifts from fossil fuels to clean energy, and for enhanced institutionalized climate financing for the world’s most vulnerable.

At COP29’s 11th hour, circumstances were altered. Developed nations committed only USD 250 billion by 2035. Several envoys, experts, and observers criticized it as “unacceptable,” “inadequate,” and “insulting.” Clearly, OPT remains a contested New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG). It’s nevertheless considered by multiple experts an acceptable evidence-based amount to replace the insufficient USD 100 billion target, which was set in 2009 and expires in 2025. Projections had ranged from USD 200 billion to USD 5 trillion.

For perspective, USD 1.3 trillion is nearly thrice as large as the entire Philippine economy (estimated at USD 470 billion, 2024), but only about one percent of the global economy (est. at USD 105 trillion, 2023). The figures show that, even if we wanted to do so, the Philippines (the world’s most vulnerable country to climate change and a developing country) is incapable of solving the problem alone; but, together, the world can.

The world is shocked that we had just suffered through six savage storms in 27 days from late October to mid-November 2024. Two of six were super typhoons. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Japan Meteorological Agency characterized it as “unusual” and said it was the first time, since records began in 1951, that four successive tropical cyclones co-existed in November in the Pacific Ocean. Is it really strange though, for it to happen in 2024, which is the hottest year on record in terms of land surface and ocean temperature? Unfortunately for us, the Philippines the recent typhoons disrupted the lives of 10 million people throughout the Philippines.

Economic damage is easily in the tens of billions. While the latest meteorological studies maintain that there would be no significant increase to the 20 or so storms battering the Philippines yearly, there is scientific consensus that weather events would certainly be more erratic and extreme. As I had asserted previously, our domestic mitigation and adaptation approaches require urgent institutional interventions in the form of a Department of Water Resources (Senator Poe proposed “National Water Resource Management Act” or Senate Bill No. 102 filed last July 7, 2022) and a Department of Disaster Resilience (SBN 103 filed last July 7, 2022).

To guarantee favorable outcomes, the Philippines needs to take a more proactive, if not a pioneering, role in climate justice. In this regard, we should commend our demonstrated whole-of-government approach transforming the UNFCCC’s Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) from theory into reality. Uniting for a common cause through our Executive and Legislative Departments, the Philippines swiftly passed Republic Act No. 12019 or “The Loss and Damage Fund Board Act.” It grants juridical personality with full legal capacity to the FRLD Board to enter into contracts, acquire property, and undertake other acts necessary to fulfill its functions. FLRD is focused on funding economic and non-economic loss and damage associated with climate change’s adverse effects. We look forward to its advancements in climate justice on the fourth meeting of the FRLD Board from Dec. 2 to 5, 2024. It will be the first one held in the Philippines.

Three concerns are imperative. First, we join the President’s and various stakeholders’ emphasis on immediate climate justice, not mere climate action. Developed countries must be held accountable now under the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development’s precautionary principle and polluter pays principle. The G20 accounts for 85 percent of the world’s GDP, two-thirds (66 percent) of the world’s population and nearly 80 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Developed countries not only have the greater capacity to contribute, but historically have been the greatest polluters. In contrast, the Lowly Institute estimates that the Vulnerable Twenty (referring to 68 nations representing 20 percent of the world’s population and responsible only for five percent of global emissions) lost 20 percent of its GDP from 2009 to 2019 due to climate change. It is unfair and unjust that developing countries like the Philippines and the rest of the Global South, who are far less responsible for climate change, are cumulatively far exposed to human suffering by climate change cataclysms and its consequences.

Second, accountability is key. Oxfam’s several reports on climate change financing and inequality are illuminating. Under Oxfam’s 2024 Climate Finance Unchecked Report, up to 43 percent of the World Bank’s climate spending is effectively unaccounted for due to poor record-keeping.

Third, climate justice’s core is about people. Future human joy or suffering will largely depend on the global, regional, and local actions on climate justice. I join the Manila Observatory (Dean Tony La Vina, et al.) in their keen observation that our global climate leadership remains dampened by our shameful status as one of the most dangerous countries in Asia for environmental defenders. Farmers and their families must also receive a greater share in climate financing; studies show that they receive no more than one percent.

It must be underscored that securing USD 1.3 trillion annually by 2035 is just for a shot at survival. USD 250 billion is insufficient and evades climate justice. The question now is, how will WE campaign for OPT and climate justice?