Japanese bank in a spot
The Philippines absorbs the worst backlash from the changing weather patterns that had caused an increasing number of typhoons that slams into the country each year to have a destructive force.
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The Philippines absorbs the worst backlash from the changing weather patterns that had caused an increasing number of typhoons that slams into the country each year to have a destructive force.
Potential financing problems of corporate kingpin San Miguel Corp. have gone beyond the border as sustainability groups have sought, during the just concluded G20 Summit, foreign financiers to withdraw their support to the former's flagship liquefied natural gas project.
Climate and environmental advocates confronted the Japan Bank for International Cooperation on its pledge not to support carbon fuel projects as part of the global effort to mitigate the greenhouse effect.
JBIC is financing the Atlantic Gulf & Pacific liquified natural gas terminal in Ilijan, Batangas, a component of the more than P50-billion SMC energy complex.
According to international groups, Japan turned out as the top source of funding for fossil fuel development which goes against the global effort to save the planet from the effects of climate change.
The Philippines absorbs the worst backlash from the changing weather patterns that had caused an increasing number of typhoons that wreak havoc in the country each year.
Japan, based on a report from the Center for Energy, Ecology, and Development, has set its sight on Southeast Asia for fossil fuel financing.
Environmental advocates had previously warned about SMC's dirty gas project directly threatening the Verde Island Passage, which is the most biodiverse marine habitat in the world.
The natural wonder in Batangas is known worldwide as the Amazon of the oceans.
Japanese agencies pump in $10.6 billion in funding per year on average from 2019 to 2021 to fossil fuel projects.
International financiers must live true to their claims of environmental guidelines and cut off any flow of investment that puts Verde Island Passage in peril, Goldman Prize Awardee Fr. Edwin Gariguez, lead convenor of Protect VIP, said.
Gariguez wrote JBIC's Tokyo headquarters through the Japanese environmental group Friends of the Earth, to inform the multilateral agency that the Department of Agrarian Reform had issued a cease and desist order against AG&P based on findings of premature land conversion in Barangays Ilijan and Dela Paz without a permit and the illegal tree cutting based on a review the Philippine Coconut Authority.
In support of the local effort, Friends of the Earth Japan urged JBIC to immediately cease construction of the project and withdraw its financing as it violates provisions in its own "guidelines for confirmation of environmental and social considerations".
The Japanese ecological advocates also mentioned the lack of "social acceptability" and significant conversion or degradation of "critical natural habitats" in the AG&P and SMC Global Power partnership.
"We are calling on JBIC to immediately suspend construction activities and withdraw from the Ilijan LNG terminal project in the Philippines," Hozue Hatae, Friends of the Earth Japan representative, said.
It had turned out that with the uncertain price outlook and the growing international protest on the use of imported LNG, SMC is taking another losing bet on the use of the imported energy source.
Natural gas when sourced indigenously such as that from the Malampaya field provides reliability while the country transitions to the use of renewable energy that experts said promises to be a cheap source of fuel.
Instead of hedging, however, SMC Global Power threw in its lot with imported LNG by ending a supply deal with Malampaya.
SMC crying about mounting losses is a pathetic scene as it brought its predicament to itself.
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