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ENVIRONMENTAL advocacy group World Wildlife Fund
Philippine chapter has urged the outgoing Thirteenth
Congress to remove from its backburner the Renewable
Energy Bill, arguing its promised impact in mitigating
global warming “is much more significant than the
recently passed Biofuels Act of 2006.”
Speaking
on government’s response to climate change, local WWF
climate and energy officer Rean D. Tirol called
attention to the turtle pace of legislative attention to
the Renewable Energy Bill that has been in Congress for
13 years and still unattended to. “If this bill is
pushed out, this will mean it will go back through the
whole legislative process. With new players in Congress,
who knows how long this will take?”
Tirol
said that climate-change mitigation will take about 20
years to stabilize the atmosphere, and by such
unmitigated delay places at risk the people from more
intense typhoons in the next couple of decades.
He added
the Department of Energy expects the country to have in
the next couple of years power shortages.
Tirol said this
means “without the renewable energy bill, we will have
more carbon dioxide-producing coal plants.” Carbon
dioxide is one of the greenhouse gases—they trap the
heat of the sun on the earth’s surface, thus raising
world temperature.
To avoid
this, advocates like former Vice President Al Gore and
here in the country, Tirol, are pushing for nongas-producing
renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, hydro,
biomass, and geothermal.
“With
climate change as a threat to our way of life, it is
highly imperative for the government to have the
Renewable Energy Bill passed into law immediately,” said
Tirol.
Energy
Secretary Raphael P. M. Lotilla had said the government
is doing its part to have the needed legislation, and
that President Arroyo has even certified the renewable
energy bill for priority legislative action.
The
House had passed its version of the bill in September
2006 while the Senate Committee on Energy filed its
Committee Report No. 208, recommending the approval of
the Senate version SB 2562 on December 20, 2006.
The
Senate is expected to deliberate on the measure when
session resumes next month. The proposed law aims to
promote development of renewable energy sources by
providing fiscal and nonfiscal incentives. |
