As the Philippines belongs to the countries most vulnerable to climate change, the United States government said they are willing to scale up its financial assistance to the country, among other cooperation in health security and digitalization.
This was affirmed by US Ambassador to the Philippines Marykay Loss Carlson when she met Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno on Monday, airing intentions to strengthen the Philippine-US development cooperation further.
“I am very pleased to hear of Ambassador Marykay Carlson’s willingness to increase our cooperation in health security, climate finance and the digitalization of our tax system,” said Secretary Diokno in a tweet following his meeting with the US Ambassador.
Complementing Diokno’s statement, Ambassador Carlson said the US government felt very reassured with the appointment of Secretary Diokno and the other economic team members. It sends a positive signal to US companies who want stability, predictability and transparency.
During the meeting, Ambassador Carlson expressed willingness to scale up climate financing support to the Philippines, recognizing the threat of climate change as the most existential problem the world is facing today.
The Philippines, for instance, has been named by several reports and studies as one of the countries that are most vulnerable to climate change.
During his first State of the Nation Address, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. identified climate change as among the critical issues his administration will address.
The Philippine government previously set an ambitious commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 75 percent by 2030, despite contributing only 0.3 percent of the total global emissions.
While in terms of health security, the two sides discussed efforts to increase the Covid-19 vaccination rate.