PASAY CITY, PHILIPPINES—The Department of Agriculture SystemsWide Climate Change Office (DASWCCO) presented its contributions for the development of the Philippines’ Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) during the public consultation held last November 24, 2017 at the Davao Room, Sofitel Plaza Manila as one of the activities of the Climate Change Consciousness Week.

The public consultation was initiated by the Climate Change Commission (CCC) to promote participatory governance and to foster ownership of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) through meaningful consultations with stakeholders and effective partnerships with implementing agencies to articulate how the government plans to address climate change while pursuing sustainable development.

Dir. U-Nichols A. Manalo of the DA SWCCO who presented the accomplishments of the Adaptation and Mitigation Initiative in Agriculture (AMIA) Program said that “…the “AMIA accomplishments is just an input to a larger framework which the DA will be pursuing in collaboration with the Climate Change Committee of the Philippine Council for Agriculture and Fisheries (PCAF) in planning for strategies to address concerns of climate change for the agriculture sector and also look into its relationship to other sectors such as Forestry, Land Use, Transportation and Energy.”

During the open forum, the general comments by the panellists are for the DA (the government) to look into the whole agriculture sector within the context of the AFOLU (Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Uses) Sector for its contribution to the commitment of the Philippines under the Paris Agreement and also how it can contribute in meeting the objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Furthermore, to begin computing for the share of the agriculture sector in the GHG emissions by looking into similar approaches like that of the MRV (Measurement, Reporting and Verification).

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