₱453B Proposed for Climate Change Spending Plan in 2023

The current Marcos administration is looking into a ₱453.1 billion budget for climate change.

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has stated that the proposal was in line with President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr’s plans of providing climate change funding to eight targeted areas such as environmental sustainability, climate-smart industries and services, and food and water security.

Mr. Leonardo Lanzona, an economist at Ateneo de Manila University has stated that this focus on the environment should have been done years earlier by the government. The Philippines is an emerging economy and counts as a low carbon emitter despite already developed countries heavily polluting in the early years of their industrialization.

“I think climate change should have been prioritized much earlier. As it is, the task has become more difficult and more costly. In any case, it is good to begin now. My only concern is how the government will consider the disruptions that can emerge from this program,”  says Lanzona.

The DBM stressed that the current administration increased the climate change budget allocation to 56% year on year or roughly translating to ₱453.1 billion for 2023.

iLead’s Executive Director, Zyza Suzara has stated that the boost in the budget is a welcome development but these numbers should be put into context.

“We cannot objectively say whether these allocations are sufficient or insufficient without the government quantifying how much investments are needed to build resilience over a certain time horizon. Aggregate figures are meaningless if they do not talk about them vis a vis time-bound plans and investment requirements,” she mentioned.

Source: Philstar