Under the Paris Agreement, the Philiippines has committed to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 75% by 2030 compared to a business as usual scenario. As the country’s single largest source of GHG emissions, the energy sector will play a critical role in achieving these targets, particularly as the country’s energy demand is set to almost triple over the next two decades. Teeming with renewable resources, the Philippines has tremendous opportunities to decarbonise its energy and power supply mix, now largely dependent on fossil fuels. Unleashing the Philippines’ clean energy potential, in turn, will help achieve the country’s Philippine Energy Plan (PEP) and the sustainable development goals (SDGs) more broadly.
Conscious of this challenge and the opportunities a low carbon transition offers, the Philippines has set itself a goal to achieve a 35% share of renewable energy in its power generation mix by 2030 (50% by 2040) and to reduce by 3% economy-wide energy intensity (or a 183 Million Tonnes of Oil Equivalent/Mtoe reduction in energy consumption) over the same period. Taken together, these targets will necessitate the unlocking of around USD 337 billion to 2040. Given the tremendous needs, ensuring a sound policy framework and investment environment will be essential to mobilise domestic and foreign sources of capital to a level commensurate with the country’s clean energy ambitions.
Objectives
Given the size of the challenge, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) launched its new Philippines Clean Energy Finance and Investment Mobilisation Programme on 13 December 2021 to support the Philippines’ efforts to accelerate finance and investment for clean energy. As one of the Programme’s flagship outputs, the OECD, in collaboration with the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Inter-Agency Task Force on Sustainable Finance, is developing a Clean Energy Finance and Investment Roadmap of the Philippines, which will bring government and private sector stakeholders together to agree upon a clear action plan that identifies and addresses bottlenecks complicating or constraining finance and investment in the country.
As an input to the Roadmap, this first Workshop (in a series of three) brought together more than 200 stakeholders over two days to identify and discuss key barriers to scaling up finance and investment for clean energy in the Philippines. Day 1 of the event discussed sustainable finance and its link to clean energy; energy efficiency finance and investment as well as challenges to accelerate investment in electric vehicle deployment in the Philippines. Day 2 focused on renewable energy finance and investment challenges.