Philippines sets up climate change fund

Philippine President Benigno Aquino has signed a law creating a one billion peso (about $24 million) "survival fund" to combat the effects of climate change, a government official said Tuesday.

The law is meant to fund climate adaptation projects in a country battered by about 20 typhoons a year that cause large-scale deaths and damage, said Climate Change Commission deputy head Mary Anne Lucille Sering.

Philippine officials as well as international experts have said the growing intensity of the annual typhoons are a result of climate change.

"Now, we have the means to make our communities safer against the intensifying effects of climate change," Sering said in a statement.

The law, signed Friday, would use the survival fund to bankroll projects in water resource management and boost forecasting and early warning systems for climate-related hazards, Sering said.

It would also be used to guarantee risk insurance for farmers in case of crop damage, she added.

(c) 2012 AFP