SENATOR Loren Legarda yesterday echoed the call of United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for the establishment of the Green Climate Fund that will aid developing countries in mitigating the effects of climate change.

The senator said she hopes that leaders who will gather at the global climate change conference in Durban, South Africa on November 28, will finally push the operationalization of the $100-billion Green Climate Fund, which was already agreed upon at the 16th Session of the Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in December 2010 in Cancun, Mexico.

“Beyond our respective countries, the world must act more swiftly, more wisely, and more decisively to build resilience to disasters. Reducing disaster risks is a matter of high importance to the world now, especially to developing countries where disaster risks abound, and to the poor and the marginalized who are most affected by disasters,” said Legarda, the UN Champion for Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation in Asia and the Pacific.

“The Green Climate Fund will help developing countries like the Philippines, which is the third most vulnerable to disasters, jumpstart and fast track efforts to adapt to climate change impacts,” she added.

Legarda, chair of the Senate Committee on climate change, pointed out that developing countries need all the support they can get from the international community, but she also stressed that these nations must take bold steps in reducing their vulnerability to climate change.

“The leaders of our nation must act swiftly too. This is the reason behind our efforts to increase the country’s budget for our disaster resiliency programs and to further strengthen our climate change policy with a complementing policy on climate finance through the proposed People’s Survival Fund Act,” Legarda concluded.