Palace: Duterte to consider declaring climate emergency

MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte will consider declaring a climate emergency as addressing climate change is among his top agenda, Malacañang said Monday.

Environmental group Greenpeace Philippines has called on Duterte to declare a “climate emergency” to help the country achieve its goals under the Paris Agreement.

“Ang masasabi ko lang po, top of the agenda po ng ating Presidente ‘yan and the President will consider this suggestion made by Greenpeace,” Roque said.

(What I can only say is that this is top of the agenda of our President and that he will consider this suggestion made by Greenpeace.)

Roque also said that how the President tackled climate change in his debut at the United Nations General Assembly was proof that this matter was among his priorities.

In his UN speech, Duterte said climate change must be addressed as urgently as the COVID-19 pandemic.

The President also appealed to parties of the Paris Agreement to comply with its terms as developing countries like the Philippines suffer the effects of climate change the most.

The Paris Agreement aims to strengthen global response by keeping the global average temperature this century to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.[ac]