Senator Loren Legarda emphasised the need for urgent urban transformation toward climate resilience during her keynote address at the Trans-Pacific Sustainability Dialogue 2025. She noted that recent destructive typhoons highlight how rapid urban growth has outpaced safeguards and warned that cities must be built or rebuilt to match climate realities.
Addressing delegates from international institutions, Legarda reiterated that laws and policy frameworks exist but the crucial factor is implementation with vision. She pointed to multiple pending acts on sustainable cities, clean gateways, walkability, and electric-fleet transition as aligning with SDG 11, yet stressed that “what matters is the spirit with which they are implemented.”
She closed by calling for deeper cooperation across sectors and generations: “Let this Dialogue be one such bridge, linking research and policy, past and future.”