What are you proud of having achieved in your current role to date?

打从一开始, I adopted an integrated science based approach that recognises the complexity and interconnectedness of everything in the ecosystem, 确保团队不再各自为营. 我创建了综合环境科学办公室, which did not exist in the history of this department; and the geospatial database office, which allowed us to construct a platform that will enable us to map out the natural resources of the country.

The Geospatial Platform is in constant use today to help manage our resources in terms of water, 森林, 沿海及海洋地区, 和矿物质. 它让我们看到基于自然的解决方案在哪里是可能的, 哪里的人口供水不足, where there is environmental degradation from either neglect or abuse of our natural ecosystems, 等.

这种科学方法是如何与航运相结合的?

We have adopted a climate risk lens to look at the way the human or social geographies intersect with the physical geographies of the country for adaptation;  mitigation, 以及减少灾害和风险. Working with organizations such as Philippine Transmarine Carriers (PTC) and the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) allows us to see shipping’s contribution to economic and social development, 以及全球的温室气体. 我们的工作不仅在适应和减缓方面有很好的交集, but also in the transition of energy technologies and human resources in the sector.

我们正在努力克服挑战, especially in terms of the waste management sector with regard to plastics and microplastics making their way into our rivers and oceans. 我们有新的“生产者延伸责任”(EPR)法, which obligates plastic packaging producers to assume full responsibility for the entire life cycle of their products, 包括防止浪费的成本, 清理, 恢复措施. 但我们几乎无法控制船舶的排放, 尤其是在海外, and can only mitigate this marine pollution by collection when it makes its way to shore. What doesn’t make its way to shore goes into the ocean circulatory system, 生物和化学, 这是一个巨大的挑战.

你们还遇到了哪些海上挑战?

实际, 到2050年，我们不可能实现净零排放, 因为我们国家的经济将无法承受. So, 我们正在考虑以可再生能源为主的清洁能源组合, 但也有地热和可能的小, 模核因子. We have a 35% renewable energy target for 2030 and higher ambitions of 70% by 2050. We are currently focused on identifying renewable solar and offshore wind energy sources – including solar farms on land and floating – as these will require the least amount of investment and have the greatest impact.

Upskilling and reskilling offshore and onshore to address the new fuel technologies is critically important. This will apply to seafarers but also to the human resource at ports to operate the type of infrastructure that needs to be put in place. 另外, climate change has changed the operating environment of shipping: there’s too little water in some of our main passageways (like the Panama Canal), and ships are now exposed to more extreme weather events while at sea. So, the industry also needs to adapt beyond developing and using cleaner technologies, and train our seafarers to deal with the new climate conditions caused by global warming. 

我们需要更多的科学投资. There have been several disasters that involve waves of a certain nature that were never anticipated  but may be predictable via AI. 在一个富裕的世界, we would map the physical  and the chemical oceanography and identify how this will be impacted by changes in climate.

最后, 我们必须准备好处理过渡和最终的绿色燃料, 因为我们目前没有能力考虑保障措施, 许可证批准或基础设施. The department itself needs to build capacity to be able to monitor the environmental impacts of what the shift in fuel technologies will actually mean. 对我们来说，这是一场恢复力的竞赛.

私营部门如何支持您的能源转型目标?

此时此刻, the trajectory and pace of our transition mean that some of the greater investments are being made in infrastructure to manufacture and import LNG as a transition fuel oil. Although this is still a fossil fuel, we need to accept that this is what we can afford to baseload. We are strategically engaging with our dynamic private sector and joint ventures with foreign companies that are active in ports to engage in marine scientific research to preserve biodiversity while still participating in the energy transition.

Can the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) support your maritime aims?

我认为可持续发展目标是有目的的, but some countries will have barriers to achieving several goals because of available means including human resources or available finance. The international financial architecture needs to be reviewed to intervene for those that are most vulnerable, such as debt for nature and debt relief for countries prone to extreme weather-related disasters.

可持续发展目标是交叉的, so accomplishing them requires understanding compounding risks and complexity. We need to be able to take a single action that hits several SDGs at the same time. If you reverse engineer a path from the impacts and outcomes that you want to achieve, you get to see the interconnectedness among these goals and make investments that will have a positive impact across several SDGs.