THE Dagupan City government has began its search for a new alternative to help solve the worsening garbage disposal in the city after Sure Global backed out from the Waste to Energy project that was supposed to build a 15-million dollar facility that can convert garbage into diesel fuel and gas for cooking and lighting.

This was revealed by Mayor Belen Fernandez who admitted she is back at convincing international financing institutions to help Dagupan with a project similar to the partnership entered into with Sure Global when she was at the Conference of Parties 28 (COP28) last December 12.

Mayor Belen Fernandez said the project was aborted when then Mayor Bryan Lim refused to deliver on the city’s commitment to the project that she negotiated before Lim took over the mayoralty post. Lim’s refusal resulted in his being charged with violation of the Anti-Red Tape Act (ARTA) by Sure Global.

Mayor Fernandez told members of the Local Development Council on December 18 that since returning to her old post in July last year, she negotiated with Sure Global to restore the project given the worsening situation in the city, but to no avail.

Failing to convince Sure Global, Fernandez said she raised the city’s dilemma before the COP28 where the country, particularly Dagupan City, was identified as among the world’s most vulnerable to climate change.

She told COP28 participants, among them Natural Resources Secretary Maria Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga, that the impact of climate change is already being felt in Dagupan through extreme weather events, owing to rising sea level and continuing threats to biodiversity.

Fernandez sounded off the city’s need to enter into a partnership with international funding institutions like the Green Climate Fund, the Global Environment Facility, World Bank and USAID to help solve the city’s worsening environmental problem.

Saying that funding is critical for Dagupan to get out of its environmental quagmire, Fernandez cited Stimson Center’s CORVI assessment that Dagupan City needs to create a road map so the city can attract smart investments and make it more resilience on the impacts of climate change.

Fernandez said her decision to fully shut down the 60-year-old dump site of the city in Bonuan to improve water quality was supported by DENR Secretary Loyzaga who promised to raise Dagupan’s situation with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. (Leonardo Micua) 

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