[OPINION] How will COP30 outcomes affect Philippine climate action?

And so, another round of climate negotiations has ended, unknown to most of the Philippines.

While millions of Filipinos continue to watch the current administration be weakened by allegations and evidence of corruption and incompetence, the rest of the world convened in Brazil for the 30th United Nations climate negotiations (COP30) to decide the direction of global climate action.

After two weeks that saw over 50,000 delegates go through the rain, fire (literally), and overtime, COP30 produced a set of agreements that are a mixed bag at best and an utter failure at worst. Every single decision made would ultimately influence how the Philippines responds to the climate crisis, for better or worse.

On just transition

We begin with the biggest positive decision emerging from COP30 — the establishment of the Belém Action Mechanism. This is intended to be a platform for international cooperation for just transition initiatives, such as enabling energy transitions and workers’ protection.

It is notable for its strong language on justice and equity, especially on recognizing human rights and free, prior, and informed consent at the heart of just transition, which must be included in the text. This ensures that national just transition frameworks (JTFs) integrate them throughout the process, from planning to monitoring.

The Philippines is on track to be just the second country to have a national JTF, after South Africa. While the first draft released last October already recognizes a rights-based approach to a just transition, this COP30 decision should enable further refinement. The provision for grants-based financing for just transition under the said mechanism is also welcomed for a nation that receives way more loans than grants.

Just as importantly, this mechanism was enabled by the united call of civil society organizations worldwide, a proof of why their presence in climate COPs matter. Similarly, national CSOs have influenced the draft Philippine JTF, aligned with a “whole-of-society” approach to climate action.

On adaptation finance

The Philippines finalized its National Adaptation Plan in 2024, but it has yet to be fully implemented. While most domestic climate funds are tagged for adaptation, most of these are for physical infrastructure projects, including the corruption-plagued flood control projects. Less than 30% of climate-related Official Development Assistance received by the Philippines in 2024 is for adaptation projects.

With this context, the adoption of the COP30 decision to triple adaptation finance by 2035 is good news for the Philippines, even if it is a watered-down version of what developing countries fought for in Belém. With typhoons, droughts, sea level rise, and other climate hazards still looming, every available and accessible source of funding and support counts. This does not mean that the Philippines should stop fighting for scaled-up finance that actually meets the needs of developing countries.

Nonetheless, any form of finance must be accessible. Securing foreign support must also not further burden the Philippines with loans that ultimately would be costly to its citizens. This must be coupled with improved alignment of the national climate budget with genuine solutions, with transparency and accountability measures to ensure the funds directly go to the most vulnerable communities.

On avoiding deforestation

COP30 saw the creation of the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), which provides payments to tropical forest countries to aid their forest protection and reforestation efforts, based on how much forest cover it has. This would aid the forest protection and reforestation initiatives in the Philippines, which have never been more relevant given the ongoing flood control-related corruption scandals.

To access this, the country must meet a set of eligibility criteria, such as an annual average annual deforestation rate below 0.5%, a downward trend in deforestation from the year before, and a robust national forest monitoring system. Based on this, there are challenges that the Philippines must address if it intends to access the TFFF.

This includes ensuring a robust national forest monitoring system, which the Philippines is lacking in several aspects of implementation. These aspects include a lack of enough resources and manpower, outdated policies, widespread illegal acts of deforestation, and inability to more recently update its national forestry data.

On the fossil fuel dilemma

Yet the success of any climate COP is determined by its ability to address the root source of this crisis
— fossil fuels.

Two years ago in Dubai, countries agreed for the first time to transition away from fossil fuels. After two weeks in Belem, those words did not appear anywhere in the headline decision text, as petrostates like Saudi Arabia and Russia successfully blocked any mention of it, let alone a roadmap with concrete targets on how to live up to the aforementioned previous decision.

The Philippines’ decision not to join the 87 countries that did commit to support the fossil fuel transition roadmap, even outside of the COP proper, is its biggest failure in Belém. The country has been noncommittal to the fossil fuel dilemma in previous COPs as well, which could be seen as due to the influence of the fossil fuel corporations still dominating the national energy sector.

Yet without a clear plan to end the era of dirty energy, no matter how well our country adapts, the impacts of the climate crisis would become too much to handle. As a moral matter of fighting for those hit hardest by climate disasters — women, children and youth, farmers, urban poor, and indigenous peoples, among others — the Philippine government should have stood up and demanded for the root source to be addressed.

Still, it chose not to. These words cannot be the story of what the current administration — who made climate action a priority agenda — actually does. How many chances to right the wrongs in our country are we going to let our leaders pass by?

When it comes to the climate crisis, we are running out of chances. If the past month alone of Tino and Uwan were not enough to remind us or those who claim to represent our interest at the world’s biggest climate decision-making body, then what will? – Rappler.com

JL is the national coordinator of Aksyon Klima Pilipinas. Attending his seventh climate COP in Brazil, he is currently the de facto lead for all climate CSOs in the Philippines.