Duterte relents on Paris pact position, agrees to ratify

MANILA: Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte agreed on Monday to sign the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, backtracking from his previous stance that he would not support a deal he believed would hurt the country’s industrialisation hopes.

“After so much debate, the climate change (agreement) will be signed,” he said.

“It was a cabinet decision, I’ll go along with it and sign it.” Duterte had previously said he “will not honour” the proposed restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions, arguing that such/s”limitations” could stymie the country’s industrialisation.

Duterte has been criticised for saying he would not recognise the country’s commitments to the Paris pact, which came before his big victory in the May election.

His biggest critics include his mentor and former president Fidel Ramos.

Ramos, who has quit his job in the Duterte administration as special envoy to China, is a supporter of Duterte but has recently turned critical of the maverick leader, including over his position on the Paris accord.

Washington was not spared of Duterte’s diatribes on Monday either, even in comments about the climate pact.

He said industrial countries were known not to honour obligations to contribute to a United Nations Green Climate Fund “especially America”, which he said “has not paid its dues”.

Nearly 200 countries, including the Philippines, adopted the Paris agreement in December last year to combat climate change, aiming to transform the world’s fossil-fuel-driven economy within decades and slow the pace of temperature rise to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius.

The deal formally came into effect on Nov. 4 but has yet to be ratified by the Philippines.

Manila has committed to reduce its emissions by 70 per cent by 2030, but it will need technical and financial support to achieve it.

The Philippines is among countries that suffer most from the impacts of climate change, such as strong storms including Super Typhoon Haiyan in November 2013, which killed more than 6,300 people.

UN talks to implement the landmark Paris climate pact opened in Marrakesh on Monday, buoyed by gathering momentum but threatened by the spectre of climate change denier Donald Trump in the White House.

Diplomats from 196 nations will flesh out the planet-saving plan inked in the French capital last December.

“We have made possible what everyone said was impossible,” said French environment minister Segolene Royal at the opening ceremony, in which she handed over stewardship of the climate forum to Moroccan foreign minister Salaheddine Mezouar.

Royal announced that 100 countries have ratified the Paris Agreement, which entered into force last Friday, a record time for an international treaty.

Amid growing alarm at the gathering pace of climate change and its impacts — rising sea, deadly storms, drought and wildfires — the world’s nations have moved quickly over the last year to tackle the still-growing problem.

But as 15,000 negotiators, CEOs and activists settle in for the 12-day talks, all eyes are on the United States, where voting Tuesday could thrust Trump into the White House.

When it comes to global warming, the stakes could hardly be higher, President Barack Obama has warned.

“All the progress we’ve made on climate change” — including the Paris pact, decades in the making — “is going to be on the ballot,” he told TV talk show host Bill Maher on Friday.

The Republican candidate cannot carry out his threat to “cancel” the still-fragile accord, but a Trump victory could cripple it, experts here agree.

Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton has vowed to uphold Obama’s domestic energy policies and international climate commitments.

In Marrakesh, front-line diplomats must roll up their sleeves and work through scores of procedural issues that will make the difference between success and failure.

They have informally set 2018 as the deadline for laying that groundwork, Royal told journalists the day before the talks opened.

— Agencies