Philippines Vows to Cut Emissions by 70%

The Philippines pledged on Thursday to cut the archipelago nation's carbon emissions by 70 percent by 2030, pending financial support from developed countries.

President Benigno Aquino approved the country's climate change mitigation and adaptation plan, which is set to be implemented after 2020, spokesman Herminio Coloma said in a statement.

The announcement came ahead of upcoming climate change talks in Paris later this year.

"These reductions in emissions are conditional and will be pursued if sufficient financial resources, technology development and transfer, and capacity building will be made available to the Philippines after the Paris climate talks in December," Coloma said.

A U.N. summit in Copenhagen in 2009 set a goal of keeping temperature rises at no more than two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) from pre-industrial times, a level that is still expected to cause growing droughts and disasters but which scientists consider comparatively manageable.

Experts say this can be achieved if rich nations go ahead with plans to peak carbon emissions by 2020 and developing countries, including the Philippines, do so a decade later.

A total of 136 nations have submitted their initial intended nationally determined contributions to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, said Lucille Sering, head of the Philippines Climate Change Commission.