PHL joins calls for world leaders to implement Paris Agreement

The Philippines joined calls for world leaders to implement the historic Paris Agreement to fight global warming, this amid the United States’ threats it would exit from the United Nations pact.

“As long there is a chance to stop global warming at a level that lets humanity survive and thrive, we should seize it,” Emmanuel De Guzman of the Philippines’ Climate Change Commission said on the sidelines of UN talks under way in Bonn.

“This is why we continue to advance the call for world leaders to keep to the 1.5 goal and to recalibrate climate finance” for poorer countries to build less polluting infrastructure and raise their defenses against climate impacts, De Guzman added.

According to De Guzman, “…without increased climate action, no country can ever be great again.”

This was an apparent reference to US President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan: “Make America great again.”

“Our lifeline”

The climate change commissioner is also a representative of the Climate Vulnerable Forum, which represents the interests at UN climate negotiations of over a billion people in nearly 50 countries on five continents.

The CVF also released its own statement, noting that the Paris Agreement—which was struck in 2015 to limit warming by capping emissions from burning coal, oil and gas—-is “our lifeline.”

“There should be no backsliding on existing commitments,” said the CVF statement, which warned that “inaction is a serious threat to global cooperation.”

Climate activist Mohamed Adow, for his part, said six countries, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan, “must make a strong case for action.”

“Like witnesses to a violent assault, they will be complicit in the suffering of the world’s poor if they refuse to try and steer America back towards the right path,” he said.

The historic Paris Agreement set a limit of two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) limit for average global warming over pre-Industrial Revolution levels.

Also underwritten is an aspirational lower target of 1.5 C.

No announcement yet

US President Donald Trump has yet to announce whether or not he intends to execute his threats to withdraw America from the pact which his predecessor, Barack Obama, was instrumental in pushing through.

The American president may also opt to abandon the US’ pledge to reduce emissions by 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.

The new administration has said it intends to cut funding for the Green Climate Fund and related fora, including the UN climate secretariat under whose auspices the 196-nation Paris Agreement was negotiated.

Trump is only expected to make his announcement after returning from a meeting of the G7 rich nations in Sicily on May 26 and 27, where many are hoping America’s peers will put pressure on Trump to stay in the deal.

The Paris Agreement’s signatories, including a delegation from the US, are gathered in Bonn until Thursday to work on a nuts-and-bolts “rulebook” for achieving the agreement’s goals. (Agence France Presse)