MANILA -- CPresident Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on Tuesday made a pitch for more concrete funding guidelines on mitigating climate change damage and loss in his meeting with top businessmen and leaders of the European Union.

The President made this remark during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations-European Union (ASEAN-EU) working luncheon with EU leaders and businessmen in Brussels, where he urged them to step up aid to vulnerable countries like the Philippines.

Climate action is particularly important to the Philippines, said the President, especially since the country is "regarded as probably one of the most, if not the most, vulnerable countries in the world to the effects of climate change."

"Since that seems to be the case and that is what we are facing in the Philippines, we are very much in need of the assistance of Europe, of all the first world countries and to be able to adjust our economy, our communities to the onset of the effects of climate change," the President said.

According to the President, he has observed "all the progress" in the Conference of Parties (COP) and views with "some optimism" that "the concept of damage and loss has now been accepted by all parties involved."

After immense negotiations, countries at the 27th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 27) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) reached deals on an outcome that created a funding mechanism to compensate vulnerable nations for "loss and damage" from climate-related disasters. 

"However, this still brings us to a very difficult and fundamental question, and when you speak of damage and loss, how do we quantify that damage and loss? What are the rules that we apply? When does it begin?" the President pointed out.

Even if countries succeeded in quantifying the damage and loss, in terms of dollars and in terms of other measures, the President said "we still cannot, we still have not come to the conclusion as to what we do with that number." 

"And so we really would like to see much more progress in terms of that, the financing, with the mitigation and the adjustment of our countries who are at great risk to the effects of climate change," the chief executive told EU leaders.

The COP serves as the decision-making body responsible for monitoring and reviewing the UNFCCC implementation. | PND