Philippines

Critically Insufficient4°C+ World

NDCs with this rating fall well outside of a country’s “fair share” range and are not at all consistent with holding warming to below 2°C let alone with the Paris Agreement’s stronger 1.5°C limit. If all government NDCs were in this range, warming would exceed 4°C. For sectors, the rating indicates that the target is consistent with warming of greater than 4°C if all other sectors were to follow the same approach.

Highly insufficient< 4°C World

NDCs with this rating fall outside of a country’s “fair share” range and are not at all consistent with holding warming to below 2°C let alone with the Paris Agreement’s stronger 1.5°C limit. If all government NDCs were in this range, warming would reach between 3°C and 4°C. For sectors, the rating indicates that the target is consistent with warming between 3°C and 4°C if all other sectors were to follow the same approach.

Insufficient< 3°C World

NDCs with this rating are in the least stringent part of a country’s “fair share” range and not consistent with holding warming below 2°C let alone with the Paris Agreement’s stronger 1.5°C limit. If all government NDCs were in this range, warming would reach over 2°C and up to 3°C. For sectors, the rating indicates that the target is consistent with warming over 2°C and up to 3°C if all other sectors were to follow the same approach.

2°C Compatible< 2°C World

NDCs with this rating are consistent with the 2009 Copenhagen 2°C goal and therefore fall within a country’s “fair share” range, but are not fully consistent with the Paris Agreement long term temperature goal. If all government NDCs were in this range, warming could be held below, but not well below, 2°C and still be too high to be consistent with the Paris Agreement 1.5°C limit. For sectors, the rating indicates that the target is consistent with holding warming below, but not well below, 2°C if all other sectors were to follow the same approach.

1.5°C Paris Agreement Compatible< 1.5°C World

This rating indicates that a government’s NDCs in the most stringent part of its “fair share” range: it is consistent with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C limit. For sectors, the rating indicates that the target is consistent with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C limit.

Role model<< 1.5°C World

This rating indicates that a government’s NDC is more ambitious than what is considered a “fair” contribution: it is more than consistent with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C limit. No “role model” rating has been developed for the sectors.

1.5°C Compatible< 1.5°C World

Historical emissions

The historical GHG emissions between 1990 and 2017 are taken from the PRIMAP database and harmonised with the GHG inventory data submitted to the UNFCCC for non-LULUCF sectors (Gütschow et al., 2019) . PRIMAP sectoral information was used to split historical UNFCCC emissions into three groups: energy CO₂, other-CO₂, and non-CO₂ and interpolate the data between the two years reported in the UNFCCC database.

For the LULUCF sector, the historical GHG emissions data is taken from UNFCCC database as officially reported by the country for years 1994 and 2000 (UNFCCC, 2017).

NDC and other targets

The NDC does not specify the BAU emissions pathway. Therefore, the CAT uses its own assessment developed in 2015 as the business-as-usual scenario. This scenario was developed as a range based on information of current policies implementation up to 2015. Given that the NDC does not quantify future LULUCF emissions, we assumed emissions excluding LULUCF were also to be reduced by 70% below a BAU.

Current policy projections

The current policy projections for total energy-related CO₂ emissions are based on the reference scenario from the 7th edition of the APERC Energy Demand and Supply Outlook (APERC, 2019). The APERC reference scenario reflects current policies and trends in the country’s energy sector. We assume that all the current policies for the energy sector are included with a cut-off date of end 2018. The reference scenario is based on a doubling of final energy demand between 2016 and 2050; mostly driven by economic growth. The APERC scenarios use historical energy and CO₂ data derived or estimated from IEA Energy Balances of non-OECD Countries and CO₂ Emissions from Fuel Combustion (IEA, 2017).

The reference scenario of APERC Energy Demand and Supply Outlook, used for the current policy projections, considers all committed renewable energy projects and the overall renewable energy historical capacity trends. This scenario results in a doubling of the renewable installed capacity by 2030 in comparison to 2010 but falls short of the targets of the National Renewable Energy Policy.

Other CO₂ emissions are projected up to 2030 using PRIMAP trends based on the development of other CO₂ from 1990 to 2017 and harmonised with historical data. This projection for other CO₂ emissions lies between PRIMAP and EDGAR projections (Gütschow et al., 2019; JRC/PBL, 2012). Non-CO₂ emissions are taken directly from US EPA (2019) available from 1990 until 2050; data was harmonised with historical series.

The 2011 National Climate Change Action Plan (NCCAP) outlined a number of mitigation options; however, as the implementation of these measures is not mandatory, the CAT has not included them in our current policy projections.

Planned policy projections

The planned policies scenario is a range based on three main policies: The EE&C Act energy efficiency target and the NREP and coal moratorium policy.

The 7th edition of the APEC Energy Demand and Supply Outlook (APERC, 2019) presents a target scenario in line with aspirational targets of the APEC region. This scenario is also in line with the target of tripling renewable power generation capacity by 2030 (NREP target) and the reduction of 10% in energy demand by the same year. We harmonise this scenario with historical data to create the upper range of the planned policies projections.

The lower range is based on the CAT own quantification of the impact of planned policies, specially the EE&C Act energy efficiency target and coal moratorium. The Improved Efficiency Scenario from 6th edition of the APEC Energy Demand and Supply Outlook (APERC, 2016) projects emissions consistent with the Philippine goal of achieving 24% energy savings across all sectors by 2040 defined in the “The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Roadmap” (or 10% by 2030 assuming a linear reduction). The percentage difference between this scenario and the reference from the same edition is used to estimate the impact of the EE&C Act; the share of reduction is applied to the reference of the 7th edition of the APEC Energy Demand and Supply Outlook. The impact of the coal moratorium was quantified and subtracted from the emissions trajectory after the EE&C reduction. The emissions reductions from the moratorium were quantified using independent projections that do not necessarily reflect the government plans regarding uptake of renewable sources (Ahmed & Brown, 2020). Under this scenario gas is expected to reach 16.0% of power generation and oil 6.6%). Therefore, the lower bound of our planned policy scenario assumes roughly 60% renewable power generation by 2030. This scenario should be understood as the maximum emissions reductions under the moratorium policy. It shows the minimum level of expected emissions if these planned policies are fully implemented.

We also quantified the impact of the PEP in the planned policies pathway and it fell within the range described above.

COVID-19 impact

We applied a novel method to estimate the COVID-19 related dip in greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 and the deployment through to 2030. The uncertainty surrounding the severity and length of the pandemic creates a new level of uncertainty for current and future greenhouse gas emissions. We distil the emission intensity (GHG emissions/GDP) from the pre-pandemic scenario), and apply it to most recent GDP projections that take into account the effect of the pandemic. We have used a range of estimates to estimate the potential impact of the pandemic on GDP, including national projections (ADB, 2020; Department of Energy, 2020a; IMF, 2020). Most national and international estimates only cover 2020 and 2021. The IMF October update contains projections up to 2025. We used the growth rates from our pre-COVID-19 current policy scenario to extend those projections to 2030.

Global Warming Potential values

The CAT uses Global Warming Potential (GWP) values from the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) for all its figures and time series. Assessments completed prior to December 2018 (COP24) used GWP values from the Second Assessment Report (SAR).