10 November 2025, Quezon City — Greenpeace urged world leaders and the Philippine delegation at COP30 this week to take a strong stance in making fossil fuel companies pay for climate damages. These calls came just days after a Typhoon Tino killed hundreds of people, only to be followed a week later by an even stronger, super typhoon, which made landfall in northeast Luzon Sunday night.
“COP30 is a chance for Filipinos to obtain justice, and the window is closing fast. It must give Filipinos a fighting chance to survive the climate crisis with dignity and peace of mind. We deserve a future where safety and security is a way of life—not one where a wave of casualties and destruction is just another Monday morning,” said Virginia Benosa-Llorin, Campaigner, Greenpeace Philippines.
“If these global negotiations don’t deliver on making climate polluters pay, we can expect more Uwans and Tinos to pummel those who are still trying to recover from past extreme weather events. The science is clear: fossil fuel companies are raking in billions while supercharging storms that dig Filipinos into their graves.”
Super Typhoon Uwan is the Philippines’ 21st storm in 2025. More than a million have been evacuated.1 Typhoon-strength winds were already battering parts of the country before the storm arrived. In the last week, Typhoon Tino (Kalmaegi) left a heavy toll in the Visayas and parts of Luzon—at least 224 dead and over 300,000 people evacuated, according to official tallies2—while Uwan triggered the country’s highest wind signals and severe coastal warnings within days of Tino’s floods. Transport and power disruptions were widespread as authorities raced to move people out of danger.
“These back-to-back events show how quickly compounding risks escalate for already-hit communities. They result in lost lives and are driving up socioeconomic losses” continued Llorin. “Agriculture and fisheries suffer destroyed harvests and reduced catch, tourism revenues decline, and local livelihoods are disrupted. These growing economic costs fall on communities, a burden that they should not be shouldering. Robust climate finance mechanisms must be set in motion to capacitate survivors to recover and live with dignity,”
As COP30 starts, Greenpeace reiterated urgent demands for rich nations to fill the Loss and Damage Fund with grant-based finance that reaches communities fast. “We also urge Parties to seek other sources of loss-and-damage funding, such as from the world’s carbon majors—companies that continue to pollute despite decades of knowledge about their climate harms. Nationally, government must prioritize the CLIMA Bill to make the biggest polluters pay, protect and audit all climate and flood-control funds to prevent plunder, prosecute the corrupt, and fast-track community-led resilience—from mangrove and reef protection to early-warning and safe evacuation—while stopping any new fossil fuel expansion.
“We call on our government and on governments from around the world, especially the global north: Choose people over profit. Make polluters pay,” Llorin said.
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Link to PHOTOS and VIDEO HERE (https://act.gp/uwan2025)
Note to the editor:
[1] Situational Report No. 7 for the Effects of TC UWAN (2025)
[1] Tino deaths hit 224; President Marcos ‘very, very sorry’
For more information, contact:
James Relativo, Greenpeace Communications Campaigner
[email protected] | +63 919 069 3424 (SMART) | +63 960 480 0297 (Viber & WhatsApp)
