The Philippines is encouraged to follow the initiatives of Southeast Asian neighbors Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand, on the rollout of any form of carbon pricing.
The country could implement carbon taxing or a carbon trading system to accelerate the reduction of its greenhouse house gas emissions, Asian Development Bank (ADB) Economic Research and Regional Cooperation Development economist David Raitzer said on the sidelines of the launch of the ADB’s Asian Development Outlook (ADO) 2023 Thematic Report in its headquarters.
Raitzer said the newly released ADO 2023 also tackles the pros and cons of a carbon tax policy and a carbon credit mechanism that could help the country choose the best carbon pricing measure that is more effective for the market.
“Taxation is usually simpler to implement because you can impose it just as a tax on fuel. Whereas, you have to do much more monitoring in a trading system,” he said.
“But in a trading scheme, you can set the emissions objective, and then the market resolves the price.”
The country does not have any carbon pricing policy but there are initiatives in the legislative branch to pursue a carbon tax and a carbon credit system.
Earlier, Energy Sec. Raphael Lotilla said his department has to carefully assess taxes on the energy sector, as implementing the carbon tax might further increase the already high electricity prices in the country.
The ADB report shows that Asia is highly vulnerable to climate change.
Under a high carbon emissions scenario, climate change could incur gross domestic product losses of 24 percent in developing Asia and 30 percent in Southeast Asia in 2100. – PNA
