COP29: Why it matters to the Philippines

Adding to the alphabet soup of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on Climate Change or the annual UN climate talks is the new collective quantified goal for climate finance—the much-awaited agreed amount for countries to mitigate and adapt to climate change and pay up for loss and damage brought about by the climate crisis. It is the focus of this year’s COP29 in Azerbaijan.

Despite numerous discussions, governments have yet to agree on who should pay and by how much, among others. While negotiators insist on a “realistic” amount, the impacts of the climate crisis remain real and felt across the world.

In the Philippines, impacts come in the form of higher temperatures, rising sea levels, and extreme weather events such as successive super typhoons happening outside of the rainy season, causing health risks, floods, landslides, infrastructure damage, a significant decrease in economic outputs, and loss of lives and livelihoods.

From the recent severe tropical storm Kristine (Trami) and super typhoon Leon (Kong-rey) alone, over $100 million worth of damages to agriculture, infrastructure, and properties are estimated to have been incurred. The amount is expected to balloon as Typhoons Nika (Toraji), Ofel (Usagi), and Pepito (Man-yi) batter the archipelago.

Experts worldwide have shared sobering data pointing to the Global North countries and super-rich as the highest contributors to the world’s carbon emissions, which have fueled the climate crisis that is putting everyone and the planet at risk.

The wealthy 1% are responsible for half of all plane carbon emissions, based on Oxfam’s Carbon Inequality Kills 2024 report. The global study showed that emissions from the super-rich’s investments, private jets, and superyachts are greater than the consumption emissions of the poorest 2% or 155 million people combined.

The super-rich’s carbon consumption fuels inequality, hunger, and excess deaths. Exorbitant carbon emissions result in hotter temperatures, significantly affecting crop yields, labor productivity, and energy use and risking people’s health and lives.

When disasters happen, governments must act, but the capacity of people and countries to respond to and recover from negative climate impacts differs vastly.

Oxfam’s Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index 2024 revealed that governments of low- and lower-middle income countries like the Philippines limit their spending on climate shocks because they use 48% of their budgets to pay for debt service.

The report examined the commitment of 164 countries to fight inequality based on their policies on public services, fair taxation, and labor rights. It found that inequality is a policy choice among nations. It added that countries could reduce inequality if the international community takes “strong measures” such as “implementing global agreements to tax super-rich individuals and corporations” and “urgent measures to tackle the debt crisis and increase concessional financing flows”.

Global North must #PayUp: Obligation, not a donation. As primary contributors to the climate crisis, the Global North and super-rich must pay up a hefty sum commensurate with the injustices and damages they have caused to the people and the planet.

Oxfam Pilipinas joins its allies and networks in calling for a $5 trillion per year of grants-based public finance as the new climate finance goal. This amount is based on the estimates of historical climate debts and reparations that developed countries owe developing countries, such as the Philippines, that bear most of the irreversible effects of climate change.

The $5 trillion per year goal is possible, contrary to the arguments of rich countries, based on the Carbon Inequality Kills report. The amount could come from wealth and income taxes of the world’s super-rich and windfall profits of polluting companies.

Failure to secure the climate financing at COP29 would mean people from the most vulnerable communities and countries will live in worsening poverty and inequality while the rich polluters will continue to act with impunity.

Oxfam Pilipinas calls on the wealthy governments to pay up their historical climate debt of $5 trillion per year so that everyone, not just the super-rich, has a chance to survive.

Only when this happens can we acknowledge that COP29 is as historic as they proclaim it to be.

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Joel Chester “Cheng” Pagulayan is the Climate Justice Portfolio Manager of Oxfam Pilipinas and a staunch activist pushing for gender rights, equality, and climate justice.