The Philippines needs a comprehensive climate change action plan to build a climate-resilient country, Lopez-led First Philippine Holdings Corp. (FPHC) said on Wednesday.
“We need a comprehensive, integrated and well-studied national decarbonization and adaptation plan of our own, backed by constant feedback from what science is telling us,” said FPHC Chief Executive Officer Federico Lopez during the 4th Philippine Environment Summit.
Since the Philippines is fourth on the world’s climate vulnerability list, Lopez stressed the urgency to prepare cities, communities, and infrastructure for a climate-changed world.
Lopez said almost every major developed city has a climate change action plan. Tokyo, for instance, has its network of underground tunnels and cathedral-sized cisterns that can divert flooding with high-speed pumps that can empty a 50-meter Olympic-sized pool in seconds.
Malaysia, he added, has its famous 9.7-km SMART Tunnel that converts an underground roadway into a flood diversion tunnel when needed. London has its famous Thames barrier that protects it from similar flooding events. Lopez said similar projects are being planned for Singapore, New York, Boston, and other important cities.
The country has yet to come up with its own decarbonization plan. Lopez is hoping that this is “something that I think they will work on.”
“Decarbonization has many aspects; it’s not just energy. It also includes agriculture, waste, food… I mean, DENR [Department of Environment and Natural Resources]. That one crosses many. That’s decarbonization but then the other is adaptation that involves many… from Climate Change Commission to DENR to DPWH because adaptation is you have to know what’s coming, the kind of climate impacts.”
He said a study on rising sea level is being conducted by the Oscar M. Lopez Center.
“There’s a number of very good resources that are pooling it together and that can sort of like localize the impact of sea level rise in the country so that once you have that study, you can disseminate so people know what we prepare for and you know the kinds of projects also that are needed to prepare the country from the sea level rise.
Precipitation levels will become higher, rainfalls, the typhoons will be stronger but also sea levels are going to start climbing and that those all have impacts,” said Lopez.
He also cited the foundations of the global energy transition. On top of the list is to reduce carbon intensity of electricity, which can be done by lowering carbon intensity per kilowatt hour.
The second foundation is to scale up energy efficiency as the “first fuel” and encourage and incentivize its use everywhere.
He said there is also a need for a greener grid; the production of carbon neutral fuels like green hydrogen and green ammonia; and deployment of carbon capture use and storage to arrest more emissions from other hard-to-reach sectors.