The Japan International Cooperation Agency, or JICA, will be conducting data collection and analyses on climate change in the Philippines to help reduce the country's carbon emissions by up to 75 percent by 2030 and create sustainable growth in a range of industries.

JICA Chief Representative for the Philippines Sakamoto Takema said the data-gathering will run until March next year in collaboration with the Philippine Climate Change Commission.

The groups expressed their commitment to the climate-change project through a signing of a letter of understanding last Tuesday.

"Through this initiative, JICA is keen to identify short- to long-term cooperation with the Philippines so that we can balance climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts, as well as environmental conservation and protection, with growing other sectors like energy, industry, and agriculture," Takema said.

Phl most vulnerable to disasters

While the Philippines contribute only 0.4 percent carbon emissions to the global output, it ranks as the most vulnerable to disasters in the 2022 World Risk Index.

"JICA supports Filipino friends in line with the co-benefit approach, which is a win-win strategy aiming to achieve both development and climate benefits realistically," Takema said.

Climate change causes extreme drought, flooding, and wildfires as global temperatures increase due to carbon emissions from cars, factories and other man-made activities.

As both signatories to the Paris Agreement and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Japan and the Philippines are expected to limit temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius or close to pre-industrial levels.

Substantial impact

Takema said previously launched projects by both countries have already made some substantial impact on mitigating effects of climate change in the Philippines.

For example, he said Japan granted 1.2 trillion Japanese Yen for various railway projects to help the Philippines reduce its use of petroleum-run cars.

The others are recycling technologies that turn used cooking oil into cleaner energy for electric tricycles in Boracay, and food waste into biochar or charcoal used in Cebu either to produce energy with low heat or absorb carbon in the environment.

In terms of disaster management, Takema said JICA also helped build the five-year long Pasig-Marikina River Channel Improvement Project which saved one million residents from flood during the typhoon "Ulysses" in 2020.

"Furthermore, we cannot emphasize more the importance of disaster-risk reduction and management efforts, in terms of adaptation, too. JICA has been very proactively supporting you in this aspect, such as through capacity development and construction of resilient infrastructures," he said.