OUR beloved Negros Occidental is a province which we always take pride as the Renewable Energy Capital of the Philippines. Several cities within it are also being recognized for various sustainability efforts--just last week, for example, San Carlos City and La Carlota City were 2 out of 10 cities in the Philippines awarded for their climate mitigation and adaptation in the One Planet City Challenge of WWF Philippines. Though there are still many environmental challenges our people face today, we Negrosanons are quite glad to call this province, and island, our home.
This current status of being an RE capital, however, was the outcome of two decades of resistance against the entry of destructive fossil fuels. Five coal-fired power plants have been proposed across Negros, the most recent among which is a 300 MW project by San Miguel Corporation in San Carlos City. Horrors experienced by coal-affected communities beyond the island’s shores were something that we - Negrosanons - refused to allow ourselves or our future generations to go through.
Today, at least 28 coal plants are operating across the country. Communities and ecosystems around these suffer the polluting impacts of coal. Meanwhile, the rest of our people are getting all the more exposed to deteriorating overall air quality and worsening climate change. Over 20 coal projects are still in the national pipeline. We simply cannot afford to have them come online, nor to allow existing power plants to continue operating decades more into the future.
Withdraw from Coal, a campaign that we along with colleagues in civil society, faith organizations, communities, and advocacy groups have embarked on, was formed to engage one of the most important climate actors who are also shaping the future of coal: the finance sector. Philippine banks and other financiers have caused the expansion of coal in the past decade — thanks to their financial services to coal developers and projects! If they will not choose to phase out these activities, our future and that of generations to come are placed in greater peril. With this in mind, Withdraw from Coal continues to urge Philippine banks to have policies and timelines to phase out coal in their work.
Last Friday, members of the campaign made public the outcome of the Coal Divestment Scorecard. It is an initiative which assesses 15 Philippine banks according to how exposed they are to the coal industry, and whether or not they have started to hold themselves accountable to the dirty impacts their coal financing has caused through divestment and climate action efforts. These banks are ones identified to have channeled at least 13.42 billion USD to coal developers and projects in the past 10 years, and research has shown that, among them, the Bank of the Philippine Islands, Banco de Oro, and Philippine National Bank are coal's biggest local financiers. All 15, meanwhile, have made little to no progress in their responsibility as climate actors to withdraw the financial services to the coal industry with clear and public divestment policies and phase out plans. For those interested, the Withdraw from Coal scorecard can be viewed in the campaigns online site of the same name. (https://m.facebook.com/withdrawfromcoalph/)
Many of us in Negros are Stewards of Creation, and we may be surprised that the banks in whom we place our trust and resources are fueling the climate crisis and suffering of coal-affected communities. All the more we must unite and use our voices as these banks' stakeholders to urge them to stop doing so. It is our hope that through this initiative, we are able to assist the banks in reevaluating their responsibilities in the climate sphere and towards the Filipino public. We hope you, dear readers, could join us as fellow depositors and stakeholders of these banks in urging that they withdraw from coal and invest instead in a greener future for all.
I wish you all a meaningful week.