Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 13) — The country has bagged a half-a-billion-peso grant to establish a forecasting and early warning system for natural disasters.
The Climate Change Commission on Wednesday announced that the Green Climate Fund has approved the proposal, worth $10 million or around ₱500 million. This will be used to establish a multi-hazard, impact-based forecasting and early warning system.
“The project aims to translate hazard forecasts into warnings that can convey location- and sector-specific impacts, providing tailored climate risk information directly to the LGUs (local government units) and communities on the ground,” the CCC said in a statement.
The fund will be channeled to the Land Bank of the Philippines. Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration, the state weather bureau, will head the project, along with the Department of Interior and Local Government, Department of Environment and Natural Resources-Mines and Geosciences Bureau, Office of Civil Defense, and the World Food Programme.
The target sites include Tuguegarao City; Legazpi City; Palo, Leyte; and New Bataan, Davao de Oro.
Climate Change Commissioner Rachel Herrera said this first grant for the country is just the beginning.
“The CCC, as the National Designated Authority to the GCF, will remain determined to access more climate finance that can enable genuine and lasting resilience for our vulnerable communities,” Herrera said in a statement.
The GCF is an international fund to aid developing counties address climate change challenges.
House Deputy Speaker Loren Legarda, an alternate member of the GCF Board, said lessons the country learned from Typhoon Yolanda “necessitated the need for a project like this that can translate risk and hazard information into understandable and actionable early warnings, so our citizens remain safe and aware.” Yolanda, the strongest and deadliest typhoon in the country’s history, left more than 6,000 people dead in 2013.
