Duterte, Trump share concern on climate pact

MANILA, Philippines - After congratulating US president-elect Donald Trump in a phone call, President Duterte hinted that he may have found an ally in Trump regarding his concerns about the Paris agreement on climate change. 

In a speech at the groundbreaking for the Pulanai 10.6 MW hydroelectric power plant in Bukidnon yesterday, Duterte reiterated his opposition to the Paris climate agreement, which seeks to require countries to reduce their carbon emissions to mitigate global warming.

“Now, Trump decided to junk a garbage, a lot of garbage about climate change and there’s a treaty about controlling the carbon emissions here,” Duterte said.

“I was reading the proposed treaty which we signed eventually. It is binding member-states, the signatories, and if it is binding, it binds all to obey it. Now the problem is, there is no sanction (to violators). There’s absolutely none. Not a punitive or money or whatever and the world of affair runs like this.

“They said if we suffer from a climate change in Southeast Asia, it’s just the money. If you read the treaty, it says it is incentive money to build gadgets, machines, whatever, to prevent climate change. It does not provide anything as a relief for damages incurred by any country. That money is to enhance, it does not say there that it should be paid to countries that suffer damages because of climate change,” he added.

The Philippines ranked fifth among countries that suffered most from extreme weather events in the past decade, according to the latest climate index released by Berlin- and Bonn-based think tank GermanWatch.

The Global Climate Risk Index 2017, released by the organization last month, showed that the Philippines is among the 10 countries most affected by extreme weather events such as typhoons, flooding and heat waves from 1996 to 2015.

The Philippines was behind Honduras, Myanmar, Haiti and Nicaragua. Other countries in the list were Bangladesh, Pakistan, Vietnam, Guatemala and Thailand.

The countries were ranked based on the number of weather events experienced, death toll, total amount of losses and its effect on the country’s gross domestic product.

Based on the index, the Philippines experienced 283 extreme weather events during the ten-year period, the highest among 10 countries that suffered the most from such events.

The Philippines has the seventh highest annual average death toll at 861.55, after Myanmar (7,145.85), India (3,589.75), Russia (2,945.5), China (1,354.9), France (1121.6) and Italy (1,007.6).