Typhoon Yolanda became the turning point in the climate change agenda as many of our kababayans have been adversely affected by its devastation.
To address this need to adapt to the effects of climate change, the Philippine government had stepped up its efforts for public awareness and disaster risk mitigation through the Climate Change Commission. Sec. Lucille Sering, Climate Change Commission Vice Chairperson, said that the results-based monitoring system that they had implemented not only provided the avenue for policy makers to draft laws through a climate lens, but it also gave our countrymen a more structured planning and support system that would help in the people’s survival during calamities.
When the super typhoon battered the country, many international organizations and foreign governments have offered financial aid and technical support, especially Germany, which had become the Philippines’ partner in the International Climate Change Initiative. According to Norbert Gorißen, head of the International Climate Finance of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB): “The Philippines is becoming a progressive and pragmatic partner in climate policy and we will bring this to Paris at the end of this year, for the global comprehensive agreement in climate change mitigation.”
Germany is a front player in the fight against climate change since it had recently pledged €750 million or P36 billion to the Green Climate Fund (GCF). As the Philippines becomes a focal partner of Germany’s International Climate Initiative (IKI) in Southeast Asia with a portfolio including 10 bilateral projects summing up to more than €41 million or P2 billion funding volume as well as 28 regional and global projects with a component in the Philippines, all projects are aligned and done in cooperation with key government agencies such as the Climate Change Commission, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Department of Energy as well as the main implementing partners Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).