The next administration must step up the promotion of renewable energy (RE) as well as the improvement of urban mobility and biodiversity protection, according to the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (ICSC).
ICSC made the comment following the release of the newest climate change mitigation report of the United Nations’ International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The ICSC said the incoming government should realize that acting on the climate crisis will also affect food, water and energy security.
“For too long, governments including ours have equated climate change impacts with mere disaster response strategies or reducing carbon footprints. This new report confirms what our own experts have been calling for. Adaptation must remain the country’s climate response anchor, because the pursuit of resilience objectives will establish if not accelerate the country’s decarbonization agenda…,” said Denise Fontanilla, ICSC associate for policy advocacy, in a statement.
The IPCC report said global greenhouse gas emissions must peak before 2025 and be reduced by 43 percent by 2030 to limit warming to 1.5°C and avoid the worst projected climate impacts.
It said there are options in every sector including energy, transport, land use, agriculture, forestry, industry, cities, buildings, demand and services, that can at least halve emissions by 2030.
The report said while current financial flows are three to six times lower than levels needed by 2030 to limit warming, there is sufficient global capital and liquidity to close investment gaps and that global gross domestic product would be just a few percentage points lower in 2050 if world governments will take the necessary actions.
“Shifting to renewables, investing in battery and storage, improving mobility, restoring our ecosystems — while all these contribute to decarbonization and the Paris Agreement goals, these same actions will likewise help stabilize food and energy prices, and improve access to energy and mobility while decreasing pollution,” Fontanilla added.
The Department of Energy (DOE) said studies made by the ICSC and German development agency GIZ initially showed priority dispatch of RE can pull down overall average cost of electricity in the spot market.
“Because of that study, we might issue a policy that (is) two-pronged. We will start with geothermal and biomass as priority dispatch and then we’ll move towards other RE like impounding hydro so that the dispatch of the market will be coming from those RE technology,” said Mylene Capongcol, director of the DOE Renewable Energy Management Bureau, in a virtual conference organized by the Meralco Power Academy yesterday.
Capongcol said public consultations for the issuance of a department circular have concluded and will likely be published in the third quarter of 2022.
