Philippines urges countries to help sustain Loss and Damage Fund

GMA Network

11-07-2025

Rescuers assist residents on a boat along a flooded road following heavy rains brought by the Habagat enhanced by Super Typhoon Carina, in Marikina City on July 24, 2024. REUTERS/ Lisa Marie David
The Philippines has asked countries to help sustain the fund aimed at providing assistance to nations that are most at risk from the effects of climate change, warning that the price of inaction is "far too high."
At the sixth meeting of the Board of the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) in Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu, on Wednesday, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said through Environment Secretary Raphael Lotilla that the initial allocation of $250 million for 2025–2026 was a 'crucial step forward,' but the fund must also be 'fair, future-ready, and responsive to those who need help.'
''What's at stake here demands urgency and action. Let us not lose sight of what led us to fight for the establishment of the fund. When it comes to addressing loss and damage, business as usual is not an option. Every delay means more families without shelter, more livelihoods disrupted, and, worse, more lives lost. The cost of inaction is far too high,'' Marcos said.
The President said the fund must be "swift, accessible, and human-centered, attuned to the needs of vulnerable countries and communities."
''We also call on the international community to stand with us, to help sustain this fund, and to fulfill its promises. The collective will of nations must rise higher than the seas, burn brighter than a warming world, and move faster than the storms that endanger us,'' he said.
The Philippines hosts the board of the FRLD, which was operationalized at the COP 28 UN Climate Change Conference in December 2023.
As of June 27, wealthy nations had forwarded $348 million out of the total pledges worth around $789 million, according to the World Bank, the fund's interim trustee.
Australia, Canada, Germany, Norway, the United Kingdom, Spain, the Netherlands, and the United States are among the nations that have contributed to the fund.
For environmental group Greenpeace, the so-called "climate polluters" should bear the responsibility for loss and damage.
In a statement, Greenpeace Philippines said Marcos should demand payment for climate loss and damage from fossil fuel companies and rich nations, call for an end to oil and gas expansion and for a fossil fuel phaseout, expedite the passage of the Climate Accountability Bill, and begin the process of litigating the world's biggest oil and gas companies for climate impact damages to the Filipino people.
'Those most responsible for the climate and environmental emergency must be held accountable by paying their fair share. And the Philippines can lead the way in making this happen,'' said Greenpeace Philippines campaigner Jefferson Chua.
The Philippines is among the least emitters of greenhouse gases that cause global warming, yet it is directly hit by the effects of climate change, such as droughts and strong tropical cyclones.
As part of efforts to curtail the effects of climate change, the Philippines joined nearly 200 countries in a landmark deal in Paris in December 2015 to cut greenhouse gas emissions to limit the rise in global temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius.
''Year after year we endure the harshest blows of the climate crisis, from typhoons that destroyed towns to rising seas that threatened our coastal communities,'' Marcos said.
''Other vulnerable nations share this struggle, this burden, and this collective call for climate justice. It is for them and with them that this fund was created.'' —GMA Integrated News