PRIB: Senate approves Loss, Damage Fund Board
August 19, 2024
Senate approves Loss, Damage Fund Board
The Senate on Monday, August 19, 2024, passed on third and final reading a bill which confers juridical personality and legal entity to Loss and Damage Fund Board (LDFB) to allow it to enter into contracts.
Having been selected as the host country on July 9, 2024, the Philippines has only 90 days therefrom to confer juridical personality to the LDFB and to execute a host country agreement. The 90-day period would end on October 7, 2024.
Senate Bill No. (SBN) 2780, or an Act Granting Juridical Personality and Legal Capacity to the Board of the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage due to Climate Change," was approved in the plenary with the affirmative votes of all senators present.
The bill is in substitution of SBN 2734, 2747, 2748, 2750, and 2751 introduced by Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Ejercito Estrada, Majority Leader Francis "Tol" Tolentino, Senators Loren Legarda, Ramon Bong Revilla Jr, and Marcos, respectively.
"Loss and damage" is a term used by the United Nations to describe the harms inflicted by climate change that go beyond what people can adapt to. It can include lives lost; monetary costs from the destruction of infrastructure, buildings, crops and other property; and the loss of entire places or ways of life.
Sen. Imee Marcos, chairperson of the Committee on Foreign Relations and sponsor of the bill, said the LDFB, an international body, was established in November 2022 to assist developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change in responding to economic and noneconomic loss and damage.
"The measure... is our obligation to provide the enabling law to grant the requisite juridical personality to the Board, vesting it with full legal capacity to enter into contract," Marcos said in her sponsorship speech.
The bill will authorize the LDFB to acquire and dispose of properties; institute legal proceedings; and negotiate; conclude and enter into a hosting arrangement with the World Bank as interim trustee and host of the Fund's secretariat; and, undertake related or necessary activities to carry out the purpose for which the Board was created.
"This, indeed, is a breakthrough in the decades-long and oft-acrimonious debate on funding for loss and damage brought about by climate change," she said, adding that the President has already certified the bill as urgent.
It was during the 27th Conference of Parties in 2022 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that they agreed to establish a new funding agreement accompanied by a dedicated fund to assist developing countries to respond to the adverse impacts of climate change. She stressed
Through the Loss and Damage Board, financial support will be provided in the form of grants and concessional financing that can be utilized by any eligible country.
"As of today, the total pledges by 19 developed countries to the Loss and Damage Fund amounts to USD 792 million and upwards of USD 10 million dollars have already been paid up. The Fund was operationalized last year by the establishment of the Loss and Damage Board," Marcos said.
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