DOF backs green projects in Mindanao with ‘sustainable finance’

The Philippines’ shift to greener energy sources would also be funded by sustainable financing schemes to ensure the country adhered to its climate-change mitigation commitments under the Paris Agreement, the Department of Finance (DOF) said on Wednesday.

“The Philippines takes its climate change adaptation in conjunction with disaster risk reduction. The DOF plays a lead role in mobilizing financing for climate change mitigation. We are currently establishing a sustainable finance ecosystem to synergize investments from both the public and private sectors,” Finance Assistant Secretary Paola Alvarez told a roundtable discussion organized by the British Embassy Manila on Wednesday.

“We look forward to yielding—very soon—green social projects that will have a lasting and permanent impact on the world’s environment and on our people,” Alvarez said.

She noted they were exploring ways to utilizing sustainable finance to improve the Agus-Pulangi hydropower plants’ generating capacity.

The first of a series of projects to rehabilitate the decades-old Agus-Pulangi complex in Mindanao would be financed by the World Bank through a $100-million commitment in its near-term lending pipeline.

In April, the Washington-based multilateral lender also approved a $700,000 grant so that state-run National Power Corp. could prepare for the forthcoming rehabilitation activities.

Alvarez added the government planned to “acquire all coal-fired power plants in the region to repurpose them as we increase the capacity of renewable energy.”

“This proposal aims to shift most of Mindanao’s energy requirements to hydropower, which will eventually spur more investments from companies seeking to expand their operations in areas powered by clean energy,” she said.

Alvarez said local governments would also be better equipped to formulate and implement sustainable development projects while the private sector, specifically the financial markets, would be enjoined to offer more green financing.

The Philippines earlier committed to slash its greenhouse gas emissions by an ambitious 75 percent by 2030, in line with the Paris Agreement on climate change.

While the Philippines has one of the lowest carbon emissions in the world with a mere 0.3 percent of the global total, the country was among the most vulnerable to climate change. INQ