CHR welcomes the proposed increased budget allocation for climate change expenditures for FY 2023.
From the P289.7 billion budget in 2022, it was raised by 56% making it P453.1 billion for the next fiscal year.
According to the statement by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), the expanded climate fund is in line with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s agenda highlighting the following areas: food, water, and human security; environmental sustainability; climate smart industries and services; knowledge and capacity development; sustainable energy; and cross-cutting concerns.
"CHR stress that climate change is a human rights issue. We reiterates that all human rights are interrelated, interdependent, and indivisible. Any threat to the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment is a threat to all other civic, political, economic, social, and cultural rights," according to CHR Executive Director, Atty Jacqueline Ann de Guia.
Subsequent programs and policies by the government to address climate change must then be grounded on a human rights-based approach.
To this, CHR offer our National Inquiry on Climate Change (NICC) report (bit.ly/NICCReport) as a guiding framework with specific recommendations to governments, including our own; carbon majors and other carbon-intensive industries; financial institutions and investors; UN and other international bodies; national human rights institutions; courts and those in the legal profession; non-government and civil society organisations; and citizens around the world.
In the report, CHR has found evidence that major fossil-fuel companies or so-called 'carbon majors' engaged in willful obfuscation of climate science and obstruction of efforts towards a global transition from fossil fuels to clean renewable energy.
Since the right to a healthy environment is a 'claim right', other parties, such as, businesses and other private enterprises, also entail responsibility towards right-holders.
Citizens can therefore demand accountability from major polluters.
The Philippines only accounts for 0.3 percent of global emissions. The Commission on Human Rights (CHR), however, believes that the country can set a strong precedent for climate action.
