Business leaders: Goal to cut 70% of emissions “too high”

CEBU, Philippines - While businesses have expressed their support to government initiatives to cut carbon emissions to sustain a clean business environment, the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry said the 70 percent target by 2030 is just “too high” for industries, small and medium enterprises, and the consumers.

In December last year, the Philippines committed to a 70-percent reduction in its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 as part of the Paris COP 21 Agreement on climate change mitigation.

More than 175 countries convened last April 22 to sign the historic Paris Agreement on Climate Change at the headquarters of the United Nations in New York.

Mandaue Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) president Donato Busa said, in a phone interview with The FREEMAN, that the government should have not signed the Paris climate deal because it will adversely impact industries, especially those in the manufacturing sector and the SMEs.

Busa said they earlier had a meeting with PCCI president George T. Barcelon about the recent signing of the Paris accord and found out that other business leaders in the Visayas are against it too.

Barcelon, in a letter to Climate Change Commissioner Emmanuel de Guzman, raised the concerns of businesses that the plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 70 percent, with the year 2000 as baseline year, could affect the growth of the economy.

Barcelon reportedly said the CCC should indicate holistic and specific mitigation options to meet the 70 percent reduction target, aside from the 40 percent reduction threshold already supported by the private sector and used as the benchmark for industries’ carbon reduction initiatives.

The PCCI president said capital-intensive measures to meet the target would cause businesses to incur higher operational costs, which would be passed on to consumers through higher prices of goods and services.

He further added the 70 percent target to reduce gas emissions could be detrimental to the country’s target of increasing the gross domestic product by six to eight percent in the next few years.

Busa said, “I don’t think it will be possible, they cannot stop factories and businesses for this short period of time to comply with this agreement, and it will take a lot of investments but what is more terrifying is that Europe would not buy our products and will instead buy products from Japan, because we haven’t met the emission quality.”

He added that the government should instead focus more on getting new technologies that will release low greenhouse gases for Philippine factories to produce better products.

With regards to air pollution, Busa said “the government should get rid of the small transportation and should have mass transports to reduce the GHGs.

In a press statement, Dr. Eddie E. Llamedo, OIC-Chief Regional Public Affairs Office of DENR 7 said “to achieve the 70 percent cut on GHGs, the DENR are now and continuously formulating a process called the National Determined Contributions (NDC) Roadmap.”

Moreover, to make the Paris Agreement efficient and flourishing the DENR has obliged big oil firms to utilize the Euro 4 fuel instead of the Euro 2 fuel.

However, Busa said that while upgrading to Euro 4 fuel is good, it would still be a futile effort with the presence of old vehicles, specifically jeepneys, still plying the streets. (FREEMAN)