FERDINAND Marcos Jr, took his oath as the 17th Philippine president on Thursday undermining the potential of our abundant indigenous renewable energy in helping solve ecological, economic, and energy security woes in the country, an environmental group claims.
Environmental group Center for Energy, Ecology, and Development executive director Gerry Arances even said Marcos’ insincerity is defining the Philippine government’s policy on climate change.
“On his first day on the job, Marcos finally made clear that he intends to seriously undermine the potential of our abundant indigenous renewable energy,” said Arances.
Arances said he does not even want to see the country ending Marcos’ term dependence on highly polluting fossil fuels because of his stand on its government policies.
“The government will once again be in collusion with these industries in tying Filipinos to decades of costly and polluting power,” Arances opined.
He said claims of needing more fossil fuels while ‘fossil-fuel free’ technologies have yet to be able to power economies are a rehash of the same old excuses of past administrations.
Earlier, the environmental group Power of People Coalition (P4P) said that the previous administration made a hypocritical statement during the recent climate change summit claiming that the government was all for fighting climate change.
“But against the clean energy program of the Philippines, they (country’s summit delegates) are still pushing more climate funds and coal which is the dirtiest fuel,” Arances said reacting to the speech given by Marcos.
Marcos did touch on climate mitigation and recognized that countries like ours face a catastrophic climate future if no proper action is made, according to Arances.
“But this means he said little for as long as Marcos Jr, ignores the need to transform the energy sector towards sustainability, affordability, and stability through an unprecedented advance in renewable energy.”
He also said the new President continues to hail the Bangui wind turbines as an achievement of his ― falsely, as it was a private project funded by the World Bank ― as if renewables serve no other purpose than showing off as a sustainability trophy.
