COP29: Why it matters to the Philippines

November 22, 2024

MANILA – Adding to the alphabet soup of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on Climate Change or the annual UN climate talks is the new collective quantified goal for climate finance—the much-awaited agreed amount for countries to mitigate and adapt to climate change and pay up for loss and damage brought about by the climate crisis. It is the focus of this year’s COP29 in Azerbaijan.

Despite numerous discussions, governments have yet to agree on who should pay and by how much, among others. While negotiators insist on a “realistic” amount, the impacts of the climate crisis remain real and felt across the world.

In the Philippines, impacts come in the form of higher temperatures, rising sea levels, and extreme weather events such as successive super typhoons happening outside of the rainy season, causing health risks, floods, landslides, infrastructure damage, a significant decrease in economic outputs, and loss of lives and livelihoods.

From the recent severe tropical storm Kristine (Trami) and super typhoon Leon (Kong-rey) alone, over $100 million worth of damages to agriculture, infrastructure, and properties are estimated to have been incurred. The amount is expected to balloon as Typhoons Nika (Toraji), Ofel (Usagi), and Pepito (Man-yi) batter the archipelago.

Experts worldwide have shared sobering data pointing to the Global North countries and super-rich as the highest contributors to the world’s carbon emissions, which have fueled the climate crisis that is putting everyone and the planet at risk.

The wealthy 1% are responsible for half of all plane carbon emissions, based on Oxfam’s Carbon Inequality Kills 2024 report. The global study showed that