Al Gore urges clean energy development in the Philippines

Former US Vice President Al Gore on Monday urged the government of the Philippines to accelerate the shift towards renewable energy and phase-out coal-fired power plants.

Nobel Laureate Mr Gore addressed the Climate Reality Leaders meeting in the capital Manila and said the government “must shift to new energy infrastructure and make renewable energy available to all to truly address climate change.”

Gore, who ran for President in 2000, added: “We have the solutions at hand to address climate change… We have the responsibility to avert this climate crisis especially to those countries suffering from extreme weather events that is to shift to renewables.”

The potential of solar, wind and geothermal energy production is particularly high in the Philippines and solar panels are becoming cheaper and more accessible for people in the rural communities.

Mr Gore said: “The age of revolution is beginning. Renewable energy is all good except coal companies does not like it.”

Nearly 75 per cent of the country’s electricity and nearly 87 per cent of its primary energy came from fossil fuels in 2014.

Last year, the Department of Energy announced that 25 new coal-fired power plants have been approved.

Senator Loren Legarda said one of the challenges facing the Philippines is its heavy use of coal.

Senator Legarda said: “Cities will not stop from growing, but they need to find more sustainable and efficient ways of providing and using energy. Economic growth and boosting energy security, however, need not compromise the world’s future.”

Ms Legarda added: “Clearly, the development we saw these past decades did not deliver us from the great economic divide that separates us from the more affluent countries. It has only drawn us closer to the menacing uncertainties of climate change… There is, however, one indisputable fact in all of these–the power sector has become one of the largest toxic polluters in the world.”

Renewable energy currently accounts for 33 per cent of the nations’ energy mix and the government has introduced the National Renewable Energy Program with ambitious targets up to 2030, aiming to increase renewable capacity to 15,304 megawatts.