It has become easy to blame climate change for every disaster that befalls us. Climate change is a global emergency that suggests no less than urgent and purposive actions. But often we either hide in the belief that the Philippines has a relatively lower carbon footprint compared to highly industrialized countries or blame the latter for not paying up enough for their guilt.

While calling for climate justice, we need to examine our own norths in the domestic north-south divide: cities.

Cities, if not abroad, are where Pinoys go to get jobs and hope to change their lives. According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, as of 2022, 54% of 109.3 million Filipinos have located themselves in cities. Urban density is felt even in small cities like Tagbilaran or Bacolod with densities 10 times the national average of 363 persons per square kilometer. Even more dense are highly urbanized cities like Manila with 73,920 persons per square kilometer. With density, we see cramped living spaces, especially of the poor and unemployed. We also see more transport vehicles to accommodate movement of people and more roads to accommodate vehicles. There are 3.8 million registered vehicles in Metro Manila where the total road length, including barangay roads, is just a little over 3,000 kilometers. Metro Manila is practically a huge parking lot with 1,234 vehicles per kilometer. If they move during rush hours, the speed is about 21 kilometers per hour (kph) in the morning and 17 kph in the evening, according to the 2023 TomTom Traffic Index.

An average driver in Metro Manila spends 240 hours on the road, half of it due to traffic congestion. Each car emits 1,027 kilograms (kg) of carbon dioxide (CO2) each year.

A shift to electric vehicles is still a dream riddled with concerns over affordability and how to securitize and dispose of old vehicles. A 2019 Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) study states that Metro Manila transport demand is expected to increase from 18.4 million person trips/day to 22.9 million by 2035. There is not enough space to accommodate vehicles, or for the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to build roads just to accommodate vehicles; not without impacting living space and land for agriculture and food.

The 2022 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggests that cities are primarily responsible for global CO2 emissions. It is ironic that what attracts people to move to urban areas perversely creates conditions for more greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and vulnerability to the problem created.

Cities outside Metro Manila can already telescope their problematic future if there is no change in urban development trajectory. Cherry-picking sectors responsible for GHG emissions is unsound. The approach is to deal with the whole tree of urban development design and planning.

At least three participants (Antipolo, Bacolod, and Tagbilaran) of the Integrated Urban Climate Action for Low-Carbon and Resilient Cities (Urban-Act) jointly implemented by a consortium of the German Development Cooperation, Institute for Climate Smart Cities and Clean Air Asia, and the Department of Interior and Local Government, have opted to crank up climate action. They begin by stirring the enabling environment to further sensitize urban development to climate change.

These cities are smaller than Metro Manila cities, but they foresee similar problems. They still have no count of GHG emissions contributions, but they feel the disaster impacts and other mundane problems such as housing, traffic congestion, and waste disposal, among others. They look beyond flooding and extremes of precipitation and heat. From a series of deliberative policy analysis workshops from May to August this year, they recursively examined the policy environment.

Like other local governments, there are decisions that cities cannot make. In transportation management, they can do road clearing, manage traffic, issue franchises for tricycles or prepare local transport route plans, but they do not have control over the issuance of drivers licenses and franchises of other public transportation vehicles. In housing and settlements, they undertake housing for the poor, informal settlers, and those living in danger zones, but they do not have a handle on the issuance of environmental clearance certificates (ECCs) and subdivision plans of private estates. Some cities have forests, but they do not have control of forest land tenure and resource use permits. They do solid waste management, but the system does not enable public appreciation of how much GHG emission has been avoided and reduced.

What do cities suggest?

First, an explicit policy to formulate medium- and long-term climate action programs. An existing policy enjoins National Government agencies and local governments to climate-tag relevant budget lines of their annual appropriations. While this is good enough, there is a need to think beyond annual appropriations. Reduction and avoidance of GHG emissions and improvements in adaptation capacities of people and ecosystems need medium- and long-term investments.

Government has been able to invest P309 billion on the comprehensive agrarian reform program over 30 years, P581.3 billion for the Risk Resilience Program from 2020 to 2022, and P47.22 billion for the National Greening Program from 2011 until 2019. Purposive climate investment programs can be developed by the National Government and local government units on top of climate-tagged budgets in annual appropriations.

Second, we need clear operational guidelines on resilient and green housing and settlements. Housing and settlements are privatized sectors. Government housing for the poor may not meet the criteria of greenness. There must be a way of influencing market players to go green without losing investments.

Third, local government participation in transportation planning and management must be expanded. Beyond road clearing, traffic management, franchising of tricycles, and route planning, local government units (LGUs) need to share power with the Land Transportation Regulatory Board over franchising of public utility vehicles. At the least, they should have access to franchises and drivers licenses issued by the Land Transportation Office. Most of all, being in charge of their territories, they need what it takes to manage local transportation comprehensively.

Other elements of the enabling environment for urban climate action can be propped up. Cities like Antipolo, Bacolod, and Tagbilaran can take up the challenge bit by bit.

Ed Quitoriano is senior adviser of the Council for Climate and Conflict Action-Asia (CCAA) and is the principal consultant of Visus Consulting.