SORSOGON City has vowed to pursue environment-friendly programs and practices following the local government unit’s (LGU) decision to approve a resolution, declaring itself a “Clean Energy City.”
In pursuit of the declaration, Sorsogon City is adopting a policy, “prohibiting all offices in Sorsogon City from issuing any permit, authorization, endorsement or any expression of support to the development of coal-fired power-plant projects in the city,” the city council
resolution said.
In explaining the declaration, the LGU noted that the city is “vulnerable to the effects of climate change like strong typhoons and climate surges.”
It added, “It cannot, in good conscience, allow coal-fired power plants in the city because of their destructive effects to the environment and their negative impact to climate change.”
The resolution also pointed out that the city “has been experiencing significant development, stimulated by exemplary programs of the City Government in financial administration, social protection, disaster preparedness, business friendliness and competitiveness, peace and order and environmental management.”
Through these programs and the leadership of Mayor Sally Lee, Sorsogon City earned the prestigious Seal of Good Local Governance from the Department of Interior and Local Government in October 2016.
That same year, Sorsogon City received the Climate Change Adaptive and Disaster Resilient Award citation from the Climate Change Commission for a climate change project the UN Habitat piloted in Sorsogon City.
The resolution further noted that the city’s economy “lies in its natural resources upon which agriculture and ecotourism thrive, bolstered by the fact that it is a primary gateway to the Visayas and Mindanao, being strategically located as a transshipment corridor.”
The city council came out with the declaration following the decision of the provincial government to pass its own resolution declaring the whole province coal-free.