MANILA, Philippines – Ahead of the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) in 2025, the Philippines and France marked a decade of two climate action landmarks: the Manila Call to Action on Climate Change and the adoption of the historic Paris Agreement.
Ten years ago, then-French president Francois Hollande made a “climate visit” to the Philippines, drumming up support for the Paris Agreement set to be adopted later that year. On February 26, 2015, Manila and Paris called for climate solidarity and for nations to reach a climate change agreement.
“It was supposed to be a traditional visit,” Senator Loren Legarda recalled in a gathering in Makati on Wednesday, February 26.
Legarda said she had to convince officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs to agree with the French contingent to make the meeting between Hollande and then-Philippine president Benigno Aquino III about climate.
“It was the year that the Paris Agreement was supposed to be discussed in Paris by the end of the year,” the senator said.
Less than a year after Hollande’s visit in the Philippines, 195 parties adopted the Paris Agreement in the French capital, a legally binding international treaty that seeks to limit emissions and curb climate change.
“President Francois Hollande’s state visit to the Philippines in 2015 was really a pivotal moment for bilateral cooperation between France and the Philippines on climate and maritime issues,” French Ambassador Marie Fontanel said on Wednesday.
Both nations are drumming up support for the third United Nations Oceans Conference happening in Nice, Franc,e in June 2025, and the COP30 in Belem, Brazil, in November 2025. (READ: COP30 in Brazil set to spotlight developing countries’ climate finance needs)
The goal is to mobilize at least 60 ratifications for the High Seas Treaty in time for the oceans summit.
The treaty, which seeks to protect marine biodiversity beyond limits of national jurisdiction, had been ratified by 17 countries so far, and 110 countries have committed to ratify it, including the Philippines.
“The third UN Ocean Conference will be a key moment to advance multilateral commitments to protect marine ecosystems, mobilize financial resources and share the scientific knowledge necessary for the development of informed public policies,” said Fontanel.
A few months after the oceans conference, at COP30 in Brazil, countries are expected to drive up targets on emissions reductions, known as national determined contributions.
Brazilian Ambassador to the Philippines Gilberto Fonseca Guimarães de Moura said the Philippines and France’s joint call 10 years ago is an example of “successful international collaboration” and show a way forward in climate and environmental action.
The Philippines has become a poster child of climate action and now assumes a bigger voice in international talks as the host of the Loss and Damage Fund Board, a body that would manage funding for vulnerable countries suffering from the inevitable impacts of an increasingly warming world.
Addressing climate change hinges much on international cooperation, as exemplified by the annual COP when countries gather to discuss climate action.
The global impacts of US President Donald Trump’s second exit from the Paris Agreement are yet to be fully realized, but the withdrawal already created a vacuum in much-needed climate leadership.
– Rappler.com