Several legislators at the House of Representatives have proposed a measure to establish a mechanism to address the climate crisis and demand climate justice in the country.
On November 17, six lawmakers from the so-called “Makabayan bloc” filed House Resolution No. 2362 seeking the declaration of a People’s Green New Deal (PGND).
The resolution, which is a first of its kind in Southeast Asia, recognizes that there is an “urgency to craft and adopt a PGND for a just and green economic recovery and a historic break from systemic crises and injustices.”
Representative Carlos Zarate of Bayan Muna Party, principal author of the resolution, said the measure seeks to “demand just compensation over the climate debts owed” by major carbon polluters.
“The PGND also focuses on building and expanding domestic industries based on rational economic planning informed by planetary boundaries and people’s needs,” said Zarate.
The proposed measure aims to develop sustainable and national industry “using environmentally-sound production technologies and methods.”
It also proposes to impose a moratorium on all destructive greenfield projects such as mining, dredging, plantations, incinerators, and fossil fuel power plants.
Leon Dulce of the group Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment supported the measure, saying there is a need to respond with an emergency PGND to mobilize financing and compensation from polluter nations.”
“The PGND will potentially achieve the restoration of at least 1 million hectares of degraded ecosystems and increase renewable energy share in total installed energy capacity to up to 42 percent by 2030,” said Dulce.
Sonny Africa, executive director of IBON Foundation, said the pandemic made the social, economic and environmental crises “immeasurably worse.”
He said, however, that the government “can take extraordinary measures to fix these if it wanted to,” saying that the PGND is “a historic step forward to making things right.”
Africa said the PGND will strategically create 10 million green jobs and double the income of the poorest 20 percent of families.”
The resolution in the House of Representatives is patterned after a similar proposal initiated by Alexandra Ocasio Cortez, New York representative in the US Congress.
