Groups call for climate accountability ahead of intl loss and damage board meeting
Pasay City, Philippines, 2 December 2024 – A group of ‘jeerleaders’ performed a routine calling for climate justice on the first day of the meeting of the Board for the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) at the Philippine International Convention Center in Pasay City today.
Hosted by the Philippines, the Board is tasked to operationalize the fund aimed at helping vulnerable nations respond to large-scale climate impacts. As a financing mechanism under the UNFCCC, the Loss and Damage Fund aims to help developing countries cope with damages caused by climate impacts. Experts have pegged the fund to need around USD 400 billion a year in order for it to respond to the needs of developing countries.[1] Current pledges from developed countries after COP 29 are only at the level of USD 700 million, or 1% of what is needed.
Holding up placards showing the economic costs of emblematic disasters in the Philippines since super typhoon Haiyan (local name: Yolanda), the squad of jeerleaders jeered’ at rich nations and corporations for continuing to evade responsibility for the climate crisis.
“Climate destructive businesses must be made to pay for the costs of climate impacts borne by communities. With the current paltry amount of pledges in the Fund and the disappointing outcomes for climate finance at the UN climate talks in Baku, the FRLD has a difficult task ahead. As host to the Fund Board, the Philippines can set a global precedent--the passage of the CLIMA Bill will send a strong message that high emitting companies must pay for climate impacts, and at the global level, carbon majors must be made to pay reparations into the FRLD,” said Lea Guerrero, country director of Greenpeace Philippines.
Precisely to augment funds for loss and damage as well as to emphasize accountability, local groups Greenpeace Philippines and the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center (LRC) are pushing for a national law that will penalize companies that continue to emit large greenhouse gasses (GHGs) amid the urgency to phase out fossil fuels.
“The Climate Accountability (CLIMA) bill filed in Congress in 2023 is a world-first. It will penalize carbon majors that breach acceptable thresholds for carbon emissions. The penalties will be funneled into the Climate Reparations Fund (CCRF), which affected communities, prioritizing vulnerable and marginalized groups, can directly access in the aftermath of a large-scale disaster. Under CLIMA, carbon majors can be brought to court for failing to perform their duty of care in arresting the climate catastrophe. As the host of the Board for the Fund, the Philippine government can further solidify its climate leadership by passing the CLIMA bill,” said Atty. Mai Taquban, executive director of LRC.
In fact, the international climate negotiations could take the cue from CLIMA in pursuing climate justice.
“As climate change-related loss and damage undermines the right to development and other human rights of individuals and communities, loss and damage should be treated as part of the remediation pillar of climate justice. Remediation in the context of climate change should be interpreted in the sense of full reparation, comprising restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition. In addition to providing financial assistance, developed countries should facilitate the transfer of green technologies, build capacity, provide technical assistance and offer migration pathways to climate-induced migrants,” said Prof. Surya Deva, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Development, in a statement issued the previous week.
The international climate negotiations held every year are organized around three major pillars: mitigation (reducing carbon emissions); adaptation (preparing for climate impacts); and loss and damage (responding to impacts beyond adaptation).
Under loss and damage, rich nations refuse the language of financial reparation as this will open them to lawsuits. From within the UN system, Prof. Deva has joined the longstanding clamor for the loss and damage pillar to cover remediation and reparations.
For Guile Arizona of the Jeerleaders Pep Squad, they believe that the issue of climate justice spans generations and their involvement in the action is all about inheriting a healthy environment, where corporations are held accountable for the pollution and damage they cause, adding that the government should prioritize policies that penalize these businesses.
"Young people like me are worried that rich nations are delaying meaningful climate action and are ignoring the issue of climate justice. We need policies like the CLIMA Bill to force climate polluters to make things right. The Philippine government should prioritize the CLIMA Bill and provide our generation and the next a fighting chance to survive the climate crisis,” said Arizala ###
NOTES:
[1] 14 developing countries on the Board have said that at least $100 billion is needed annually by 2030. A United Nations 2022 report found that as much as $300 billion was needed every year by 2030, while the Loss and Damage Collaboration puts the amount at $671 billion annually.
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