OUTGOING MAYOR Beng Climaco has thanked Washington for its many projects and programs for Zamboanga in partnership with the local government.
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| City government photo shows Mayor Beng Climaco speaking during the during the organizational meeting and project orientation of the Zamboanga City Climate Resilient Cities Technical Working Group. |
Climaco said the continuous collaboration between the American government and Zamboanga City through the U.S. Agency for International Development on many aspects of governance, especially on climate resiliency, has further enhance measures to mitigate and manage the impacts of climate change and disasters here.
But
the mayor said there is a need to intensify climate resiliency and urged
concerned departments under the local government to pursue with vigor the
programs started during her entire three terms or a total of nine years.
Under the Climaco administration, Zamboanga became one of the recipients of a the USAID-Climate Resilient Project, a 5-year project which aims to improve resilience by strengthening the capacity of cities to adapt to, mitigate and manage the impacts of climate change and disasters.
The project also seeks to develop robust multi-stakeholder capacity for climate information generation, analysis, use and climate change adaptation and climate change mitigation, among others.
Climaco also issued Executive Order 733-2022 creating the City-Level Climate Resilient Cities Technical Working Group.
Last year, the national government
said it would seek funding assistance from industrial countries for the nationwide
adaptation to climate change which was mainly caused by greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions.
“We
will ask developed countries to help us fund our initiatives for us to adapt to
the changing climate,” said Department of Finance Assistant Secretary Paola
Sherina Alvarez.
She said such
bid for climate justice is necessary since the Philippines accounts for less
than 1% percent of global GHG emissions, but is among countries most at risk
for and vulnerable to climate change's impacts.
Alvarez noted
climate financing in the Philippines is focused more on adaptation than on GHG
emission mitigation as climate change is already threatening the country.
Environment experts
said fossil fuel-fired power generation and other human activities are
increasing the accumulation of GHG emissions in the atmosphere so global
temperature continues rising, changing climate. (Zamboanga Post)
