Public Perceptions of Renewable Energy in the Philippines

The current study examines how renewable energy is perceived by the Philippine public through the use of an online survey. As a developing economy with limited fossil fuel resources but huge potential for renewable energy (RE), and as a signatory of the Kyoto Protocol and other international environmental agreements, RE should be central to the government’s energy policy. However, at the time of the survey, RE provided less than 25% of electricity capacity, placing it below the ASEAN average, despite its ambitious public announcements and being the first to adopt a legal framework explicitly intended to support RE expansion. The study corroborates other research that finds a high level of awareness and concern for the climate crisis amongst the Philippine public. Given that RE is often locally and community based, public knowledge and support would greatly facilitate the expansion of RE. The research found that 86.2% of the participants supported the expansion of RE and 80.8% expressed willingness to install RE on their property if it was affordable, but there was also continued support for traditional fossil fuels among 45.0% of the participants. Regression analysis found that claimed knowledge of RE was found to have a largely positive correlation with support for RE, and just over 50% saw cooperation between local and central governments as necessary for RE expansion to succeed.