A lawmaker has lauded the country’s hosting of the Loss and Damage Fund (LDF) Board under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), saying that the Philippines will gain fair access to resources for funding the fight against climate change.

Albay Second District Representative Joey Salceda, who was elected in 2013 as the first Asian co-chair of the UN Green Climate Fund, a predecessor of the LDF, said loss and damage are adverse impacts of climate change despite adaptation and mitigation measures.

“As a former delegate to the UNFCCC, alongside many Filipino experts, we fought for the principle of loss and damage and why it needs compensation,” said Salceda. “They are, in other words, the unavoidable losses due to the fault primarily of industrialized countries.”

“And because it is both inevitable and attributable, the principle is that we should hold large industrialized countries accountable for loss and damage to climate-vulnerable communities,” he added.

During Salceda’s term, the 20th Conference of the Parties (COP20) in 2014 was supposed to be held in Legazpi City, Albay were it not for a typhoon as Lima, Peru hosted instead.

Salceda previously urged the administration to take an aggressive stance on loss and damage during climate talks in 2022, in the aftermath of Severe Tropical Storm Paeng.

An initial US$700 million was pledged by donor countries to the LDF. Experts warn, however, that it is merely 0.2 percent of the total loss and damage that developing countries suffer from climate change every year.

“The Philippines has moral ascendancy in climate talks. We are the most climate-vulnerable country in the world. And we are also a global leader in DRR (disaster risk reduction) and climate change adaptation,” Salceda said.

“Hosting the LDF Board gives us a platform to highlight the true scale of the problem and to call for proportionate action from the leading economies of the world — those who benefited from carbon emissions the most,” he added.

To recall, President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on 9 July announced that the Philippines beat seven other contenders – Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, the Bahamas, Barbados, Eswatini, Kenya and Togo – to host the Board during the LDF meeting in Incheon, South Korea.