How the Philippines Plans to Deliver Climate Action:
Inside the NDC Implementation Plan, the National Adaptation Plan, and the Potential Role of the Green Force (ITSF)
in Making It Work
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Ninna Beatrice Rivera - November 2025
The Philippines has ambitious climate goals on paper. Our Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) Implementation Plan (NDCIP) lays out how we will cut greenhouse gas emissions across the energy, agriculture, transport, and industrial sectors, while our National Adaptation Plan (NAP) details adaptation outcomes, strategies, and levers for identified sectors, essentially explaining how we can protect communities and ecosystems from climate impacts such as worsening floods, heat, and food insecurity.
What the NDCIP and NAP mean to ordinary Filipinos
Filipinos face floods, extreme heat, and increased food prices. This is where adaptation projects are supposed to help Filipinos adapt to these effects of climate change through proper drainage systems, early warning systems, and climate smart farming. The NAP aims to protect people and ecosystems through localized risk assessments, resilient infrastructure, nature-based solutions, and capacity building.
Adaptation may be the most felt, but to not aggravate the effects of climate change and decrease its negative effects, in other words, mitigate it, this is where the NDC comes to play. Our Philippines commitment, essentially why it is called our “nationally declared contribution,” is to cut 75% of GHG emissions by 2030 compared to business-as-usual, with 2.71% as an unconditional commitment and the remainder conditional on external support. The NDC is primarily mitigation-centric but explicitly incorporates adaptive capacity building and resilience enhancement as well. Some projects are relevant to both the NDCIP and NAP, as these projects have both mitigating and adaptive outcomes. For example, mangroves store carbon (mitigation) and act as flood control (adaptation). Knowing more about these plans is how we can hold institutions accountable and participate in solutions.
These documents form the backbone of our national response to the climate crisis. But between policy and practice lies a crucial gap: how do we actually finance and deliver these plans? Before presenting these recommendations, which constitute the value-added contribution of this article, it is important to understand how the NDCIP and NAP are already structured for project delivery and where the financial and institutional gaps lie.
The NDC Implementation Plan (NDCIP): Delivery Cycle and Flows
Our NDCs are implemented through a five-stage delivery cycle, shown in Figures 1.1 and 1.2 below. Policies and Measures (PAMs) are specific actions designed to achieve the NDC's climate goals.
Figure 1. 1 NDCIP Delivery Cycle Stages 1 to 3
Figure 1. 2 NDCIP Delivery Cycle Stages 4 to 5
The NDCIP operationalizes the country’s emission-reduction commitments through three interconnected levels of governance as seen in Figure 2 below:
Figure 2. NDCIP Flows of Governance
The National Adaptation Plan: Institutional Arrangements and Cross-Cutting Enablers
The NAP is implemented through a structured governance system modelled in Figure 3 below. This structure aims for planning and delivery to be coordinated across multiple government layers, from technical agencies and line departments to local governments and citizens.
Figure 3. NAP Flows of Governance
The NAP focuses on building resilience across eight priority sectors supported by six cross-cutting enablers that ensure implementation of adaptation actions (as seen in Figure 4).
Figure 4. NAP Implementation Framework and Key Cross-Cutting Enablers
The Inter-Agency Technical Working Group for Sustainable Finance (ITSF) or the Green Force as the Operating System for Delivering the NDCIP and the NAP
While both the NDCIP and the NAP define governance arrangements for climate action, the linkages among planning, financing, and investment delivery remain fragmented. The enablers in Figure 4 mirror many of the institutional and financial challenges that make having a practical, system-wide solution crucial.
The Inter-Agency Technical Working Group on Sustainable Finance (ITSF), or the Green Force, co-chaired by the DOF and the CCC, already provides the institutional platform to bridge this gap. The ITSF seeks to strengthen the three core pillars of the Philippine Sustainable Finance Roadmap (SFR): the Policy, Financing, and Investment pillars. These pillars form the foundation for sustainable finance reform and can be interpreted as the “operating system” that can operationalize the NDCIP and NAP, ensuring that investments are mobilized, project pipelines are prepared, and implementation leads to real, measurable impact for Filipino communities.
This article presents an overview of the strategic plans of each pillar as defined in the SFR, illustrates how each pillar supports both NDCIP and NAP delivery pathways, and identifies a couple of targeted enhancements that can further strengthen their role in enabling climate finance implementation.
By clarifying the contributory function of each pillar and suggesting specific capacity gaps where needed, these pillars can evolve into a delivery engine that connects climate plans to funding and funding to outcomes.
Pillar A: Policy — Creating a Conducive Environment
The Policy Pillar focuses on embedding sustainability into macroeconomic policy, risk supervision across the financial sector, coordination within government, and strengthening disclosure systems. It also anchors capacity building, professional development, and alignment with international frameworks.
Within NDCIP and NAP implementation, the Policy Pillar ensures coherence in that climate objectives are not undermined by contradictory rules and fragmented enforcement. Figure 5 below details how the Policy Pillar can support the NDCIP and the NAP through its strategic plans.
Figure 5. Policy Pillar’s Strategic Plans and how it can support the NDCIP and NAP
Pillar B: Financing — Mainstreaming Sustainable Finance
The Financing Pillar acts as the bridge between governance signals and capital movement: it ensures rules translate into real market participation, and that investors, public agencies, and financial institutions can deploy resources with confidence.
To unlock the scale needed for NDCIP and NAP, the Financing Pillar needs to create an environment that supports blended finance strategies and incentivizes financial institutions such as local banks, development financial institutions (DFIs), and international partners to design, develop, and coordinate sustainable finance products.
Additional Recommendation: Integrate Finance, Data, and Results Tracking
Aligned under the existing “Tracking Sustainable Finance Flows” strategic plan, it is proposed that the current roadmap direction of “data measurement” be shifted towards results-based climate finance intelligence. This will also aid the Investment Cluster’s existing “Progress monitoring and regular updating, including linking sustainable pipeline to SDGs, PDP, and NDC targets” strategic plan.
To strengthen climate finance mobilization and tracking, the Philippines must embed climate logic into its public financial management systems. While the Climate Change Expenditure Tagging (CCET) system exists, it remains underutilized for investment planning and outcome-based reporting. A next-generation CCET should link budget tagging to actual mitigation and adaptation results, aligned with NDC’s MRV, NAP’s MEAL, and PDP 2023–2028 targets. The Financing Pillar of the ITSF should lead in connecting these systems through the already existing National Integrated Climate Change Database (NICCDIES), creating a unified Climate Finance and Impact Tracker. This platform would allow policymakers and citizens to trace how every peso of climate funding contributes to real-world outcomes. For example, how much carbon is sequestered through every peso spent on mangrove restoration. This platform could also help avoid double-counting in measuring the benefits of projects that have both mitigation and adaptation outcomes. For example, a reforestation project could be tracked using dual metrics for carbon sequestration (NDC) and flood mitigation (NAP), with appropriate disaggregation to avoid overstating impacts. Establishing reporting mechanisms would not only support transparency and meet Paris Agreement obligations under the Enhanced Transparency Framework but also build investor confidence through traceable impact reporting. Figure 6 below details how the Finance Pillar can support the NDCIP and the NAP through its strategic plans.
Figure 6. Financing Pillar’s Strategic Plans and how it can support the NDCIP and NAP
Pillar C: Investment — Developing a Sustainable Pipeline
The Investment Pillar helps build a pipeline of sustainable finance projects, finance low-carbon energy and SDG-aligned interventions, and set up project monitoring systems. This pillar focuses on translating climate ambition into bankable, impactful projects. However, pipeline systems can only work if the raw inputs (project proposals, data, and feasibility evidence) are investable.
Additional Recommendation: Build Technical Capacity and Project-Preparation Systems
Aligned under the existing “Establishing a Sustainable Pipeline Database” strategic plan, it is proposed that the Investing Pillar invest in subnational climate analytics, vulnerability modeling, and project preparation support for LGUs, agencies, and sector implementers. Without this foundation, pipeline databasing will simply be a registry and not an engine of investment-ready climate portfolios. It is aimed to function as the project-incubation arm of the ITSF, coordinating with NDC and NAP working and steering groups to prepare and bundle projects that can attract financing.
Even when funds are available, many climate projects stall due to weak proposal design and a lack of feasibility studies. There is a critical need to improve the evidence base for both mitigation and adaptation projects. The country’s first “Biennial Transparency Report (BTR) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) under the Paris Agreement” notes a lack of granular climate data and localized vulnerability assessments, which weakens climate rationales and project viability. Investments in subnational climate analytics, emissions inventories, and adaptation impact modeling are urgent. Simultaneously, expanding technical assistance programs will enhance the capacity of LGUs, community organizations, and private sector stakeholders to prepare robust, science-based proposals aligned with both NDC and NAP outcomes, thereby unlocking access to climate finance instruments like the People’s Survival Fund (PSF) and international climate funding. Figure 7 below details how the Investment Pillar can support the NDCIP and the NAP through its strategic plans.
Figure 7. Investment Pillar’s Strategic Plans and how it can support the NDCIP and NAP
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