23 June 2021, Manila, Philippines – In a bid to enhance future climate ambitions, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Philippines gathered representatives from 16 Philippine cities who are participating in the One Planet City Challenge (OPCC) to help them improve the quality and encourage robust climate data reporting.

A virtual workshop was held last June 16, 2021, where they were oriented on the CDP-ICLEI Unified Reporting System which is being used in operationalizing the data reporting process for participating cities globally. 

By reporting in the CDP-ICLEI URS, the cities can track their impacts and progress towards their commitments while showcasing their actions that engage different stakeholders towards collaborative climate action and in transition to a sustainable economy. 

“Data transparency is really a key to enhancing climate ambition so providing platform such as this to our local governments can help them raise their commitments and also assist them to further identify potential actions and solutions to achieve the objectives of the Paris Agreement and even the 17 Sustainable Development Goals,” said Imee Bellen, WWF-Philippines’ Project Manager for One Plane Cities (OPC).

The virtual workshop gathered more than 100 participants from the cities of Baguio, Batangas, Cagayan De Oro, Davao, Dipolog, Legazpi, Makati, Ormoc, Pasig, Quezon City, San Carlos (NO), San Fernando (LU), Santa Rosa, Tagum, Vigan, and Zamboanga.

These 16 Philippine cities are joining the 120 cities worldwide who have qualified to participate in the OPCC, which was launched last April. The cities of Baguio, Legazpi, San Fernando, Ormoc, and Vigan are new entrants to the 2021-2022 cycle of the global challenge. 

OPCC is a biennial global initiative that aims to showcase leading examples of climate mitigation and adaptation by encouraging cities to report ambitious climate targets in line with their fair share of the Paris Agreement including cross-cutting and holistic climate action plans to deliver on those commitments. 

The program was formally opened by Atty. Angela Ibay, Head of the Climate & Energy Program of WWF-Philippines, where she highlighted the role of cities in transformative climate solutions. She was then followed by a presentation of the OPCC assessment framework from WWF-Philippines’ Bellen. The discussion on the overview,  features and functionalities of the URS was led by Pam Cabacungan and Kat Toliongco of ICLEI-Southeast Asia Secretariat (SEAS), WWF-Philippines’ technical partner. They also gave guided navigation in the reporting process and requirements of the platform, while providing answers to queries and clarifications from the city participants.

“Great session and we welcome as well the newly-added cities! I am happy to see more cities making the commitment for a climate-smart future,” said Mr. Jasper Jacildo from Cagayan De Oro City, whose LGU has been an OPCC participant since 2015.

As these local government units (LGU) prepare their climate data reporting in the CDP-ICLEI URS, WWF-Philippines and ICLEI-SEAS will guide each city to ensure quality of data submissions in time for the deadline on  August 31, 2021. Other capacity building activities are also scheduled as additional assistance to the cities while waiting for the feedback and results of the international jury to be released in March 2022. 

Prior to the workshop, courtesy call meetings were held virtually with the new participating city governments from June 3-10, 2021 to formally introduce the implementing organizations and discuss the OPCC engagement to the city mayors.

The courtesy calls also served as a platform to share other potential engagements that WWF can offer to participating cities through the OPC project. 

“We’re very happy that we are included in this initiative and it will be an avenue for us to better our services that we provide to our constituents while looking at the mentioned [potential] projects,” Vigan City Mayor Carlo Medina said during the courtesy meeting. 

Already thinking about the future, Vigan’s local chief executive added, “I am already thinking what else we can do, like the Teachers’ Training as we want the children to learn more so they will be the ones to continue with what we are doing right now,” Medina said.