by Vijay Jayaraj
The Philippines were one of the first countries to withdraw from the Paris International Climate Agreement. However, it recurred soon after and is now torn between the need for energy from coal and the appeasement of Western powers.
Paris Timeline in the Philippines: Yes, No, Yes
The Philippines joined the Paris Agreement in 2015. Manila even submitted its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC), a document setting out its plans to reduce carbon emissions and move to renewable energy.
However, in July 2016, President Rodrigo Duterte said the Philippines would not honor the climate agreement. He argued that the deal was dictatorial and would slow down his poor country’s economic growth.
Duterte had been a vocal critic of the Paris Agreement, calling the United Nations a hypocrite because the agreement required poor countries to cut emissions, while rich countries had economic success based on fuels that had the same emissions in the past.
But Duterte surprised everyone by re-joining the Paris Agreement in 2017 after its Senate voted to ratify it.
Paris Agreement: Not for a young and booming Filipino economy
The Philippines have been slow to implement their emission reduction plans since ratifying the agreement. However, recently critical decisions have been made to stop the emissions. These decisions pose a serious threat to economic ambitions.
In November 2020, the Philippines announced that it would no longer issue permits for new coal-fired power plants. If the country sticks to this policy, it will seriously disrupt the energy sector. But not for the next 10 years. Here’s why
The moratorium on new coal-fired power plants has no impact on the plans submitted before November 2020. The government has already approved 22 new coal-fired power plants that will be operational over the next 10 years.
Even after the moratorium came into force, the Ministry of Energy continued to issue accreditations to coal traders and coal end users. There are currently around 306 registered end users of coal with a 10-year permit. Some permits start in January. This means that Manila’s reliance on coal will increase, not decrease, over the next decade.
Filipino coal imports have nearly tripled in the past decade, and the energy generated from coal doubled between 2011 and 2018. Coal currently makes up half of the country’s energy mix and is expected to be around 53 percent by 2030.
Although the economy will be dependent on coal for the foreseeable future and coal end users have been given permission to continue using coal, a number of measures to promote renewable energy and binding laws for the transition from natural gas threaten the country’s long-term energy security and affordability .
Benjamin Diokno, economist and governor of the Central Bank of the Philippines, has warned that switching from coal will bring financial risks. Lawrence Fernandez, vice president of The Manila Electric Company, a power distribution company, said, “Electricity consumers have been burdened with various subsidies and mandates for years to support (a) Renewable Energy (RE) through feed-in tariff allowance and standards for renewable portfolios, (b ) Electrification of remote areas through Universal Charge Missionary Electrification, (c) off-grid RE development through RE Cash Incentive, and (d) Malampaya gas through take-or-pay provision. “
Bienvenido Oplas Jr, a Fellow of the South East Asia Network for Development, warns, “These endless attacks to loosen or kill coal power in the Philippines and replace it with more intermittent renewable and natural gas, which is also fossil fuel, are in the making Contradiction to global energy realities. “
However, the country’s energy minister, Alfonso Cusi, is determined to move to clean energy. He insists that the moratorium on coal-fired power plants was a necessary step to curb global warming. The only problem the current government in the Philippines disagrees with the European powers on is the idea of a carbon tax. In March 2021, Cusi said, “The carbon tax burden on our generation will make the Philippines uncompetitive. So we are not ready for a carbon tax. “
Perhaps it is time for the administration to apply the same principle to other aspects of the energy sector, such as unreliable and unaffordable green energy. Renewable energies will make the Philippines uncompetitive. Even the most developed economies are unwilling to immerse themselves in a renewable energy dominated power grid, and the Philippines are definitely even less so. The legislature must become aware of this reality.
The Philippines must lift the moratorium on new coal-fired power plants and pass laws that improve the production, import, and use of coal as a fuel. This strategy will help the economy grow by leaps and bounds over the next two decades.
Vijay Jayaraj (M.Sc., Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, England) is a research fellow at the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation and lives in Bengaluru, India.
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