Mr. President, Excellencies, Honourable Colleagues and Partners, Ladies and Gentlemen, good morning!
This year, the rise in the global temperature marks the hottest ever recorded, prompting scientists to declare a climate emergency.
This climate phenomenon exposes humanity, particularly the most vulnerable, to increasing risks caused by weather-related extreme events and sea level rise.
To face the new normal, we acknowledge the need to further act to protect our people and our future.
Under Core Commitment 2, the Philippines is keen on working towards enhancing financial and social protection and further implementing ourdisaster risk financing and insurance strategy at various levels.
Using our budget, we will further prioritize investments on resiliency and adaptation, including building more resilient structures and using our natural systems. We will also improve the strategic use of our national and local funds on preparedness and prevention.
In sync with our public finance reforms, we will develop or strengthen policies to achieve better planning, including on procurement, and update our DRRM law.
We will continue to improve efforts in DRR such as the Pre-Disaster Risk Assessment (PDRA).
We will build on our experience in tracking our expenditures on climate action. Upholding good governance, the Philippines will continue to improve the accounting of disaster aid and enhance our coordination mechanisms to request and accept international assistance [through the guidelines for the Philippine International Humanitarian Assistance Center (PIHAC)].
Under Core Commitment 5, the Philippines will continue to participate in global platforms to develop common humanitarian civil-military coordination standards by taking a lead role in the UN Civil Military Cooperation.
The Philippines will uphold its commitment as a signatory to the ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response (AADMER) in coordinating humanitarian assistance in the region.
We will remain committed to support and actively engage in the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction.
Part 2: Joint V20–CVF Statement at the World Humanitarian Summit
Mr. President, the Philippines chairs the Vulnerable Twenty Group of Finance Ministers (the V20) and its associated initiative, the Climate Vulnerable Forum, representing 1 billion people highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
We are highlighting at this Summit that dealing with climate change is now indispensable to dealing with humanitarian crises.
The landmark Paris Agreement and its goal of pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius must be fully implemented if we are to have hope of containing such escalating risks and their humanitarian repercussions.
Even limiting warming to 1.5 degrees, however, would still lead to approximately a doubling of effects. This is why climate finance flows to help communities adapt is as critical as funds for emission controls.
Achieving this balance by 2020 is not only a major humanitarian priority that will save lives. It also makes financial sense.
Consider that 56 billion dollars have been spent on humanitarian response by international donors in the 43 V20 countries between 1991 and 2010. This equates to 31.7% of total international humanitarian financing, which was $176.8 billion. However, in this same period only $13.5 billion was spent by the international community worldwide on Disaster Risk Reduction and preparedness. Where is the logic?
We are convinced that investing in preparedness is a no regret, cost effective investment for everyone. That is why the V20 is spearheading the launch of a major new initiative: the Global Preparedness Partnership. With the support of the international community, we can put a different, anticipatory and more cost-efficient formula into action.
We urge you to join forces in the Global Preparedness Partnership so that the most at-risk countries can achieve a minimum level of readiness to future shocks.
Part 3: Closing
Mr. President, we have put forward today what the Philippines is willing to invest in for the future of humanity. Our group of 43 countries resonates the call to action and will count on partners to work with us on tangible investments such as on preparedness.
