PUBLICATIONS

Second Focus Group Discussion (FGD) : Development of the National Strategy to Reduce Short-Lived Climate Pollutants (SLCP) from Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) in the Philippines

Authors
Anna MANAHAN, Rajeev Kumar SINGH, Voltaire ACOSTA, Maria Delia CRISTINA M. VALDEZ, Liz C. SILVA, Premakumara Jagath Dickella GAMARALALAGE
Copyrights
Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) - Municipal Solid Waste Initiative (MSWI)
Publication Date

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) - Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) through its Climate Change Division (CCD) and Solid Waste Management Division (SWMD), and the multi-agency National Solid Waste Management Commission (NSWMC), in coordination with the Climate Change Commission (CCC), has been involved in developing the National Strategy to reduce Short-Lived Climate Pollutants (SLCP) from the Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) Sector with technical assistance from the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) under the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC).

This national SLCP strategy could be the first of its kind in Asia; existing ones are the SLCP strategies of Canada, Mexico, and California, which cover all sectors to address SLCPs. Since the Philippines intends to develop a national SLCP strategy that is specific for the MSW sector, this document could be the first in the world for specific focus on the waste sector.

The development of the national strategy is a multi-stakeholder participatory process executed by DENR/NSWMC. A core group of experts (CGE) provides inputs into the strategy composed of experts from NSWMC Committee on Climate Change/SLCP, CCC, DENR/EMB, select local government units (LGUs), IGES/CCAC, and others including academia and research institutions. To date, a series of consultation workshops and trainings has been organized, including the first national awareness workshop on SLCP on November 23, 2017 in Quezon City, and the (international) regional training workshop on measuring and mitigating SLCP from Municipal Solid Waste Management (MSWM) on April 2-4, 2018 in Bacolod City.

The Philippine government is currently preparing a roadmap for its INDC/NDC and has so far institutionalized its Philippine Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Inventory, Management, and Reporting System. For the waste sector, the SLCP strategy development process quantifies climate pollutants through a life cycle analysis (LCA) perspective. It encompasses other sources such as waste collection and recycling of non-biodegradables. Another value-added is the analysis of the black carbon (BC) emissions from MSWM. The first focus group discussion (FGD) was conducted in September 2018, where results were then consolidated for the development of the first draft of the national strategy.

As a follow through, the second FGD on the development of the national strategy to reduce SLCPs from the MSW sector was conducted on November 6-8, 2018. It aimed at achieving the following:

  • Bring together the CGE to provide technical expertise and revisit the results of the 1st FGD – SLCP reduction gains, remaining challenges, opportunities, potential measures, and the initially identified SLCP reduction measures;
  • Analyze the proposed measures and finalize the baselines and targets for the overall outcome and key strategies to reduce SLCPs from the MSW sector;
  • Identify actions per strategic measure to initially translate strategies into activities;
  • Subject the strategies to the analysis of factors and prioritization based on agreed criteria;
  • Identify measurement, evaluation, reporting, and verification (MERV) requirements; and
  • Gather main contents to revise the document and prepare the second draft of the National Strategy to Reduce SLCPs from MSW.