Metro Manila, Philippines  — President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. on Tuesday asked European Union (EU) leaders and businessmen to help vulnerable countries like the Philippines cope with the effects of climate change.

Marcos stressed that the Philippines is “regarded as probably one of the most, if not the most, vulnerable countries in the world to the effects of climate change.”

“Since that seems to be the case and that is what we are facing in the Philippines, we are very much in need of the assistance of Europe, of all the first world countries, and to be able to adjust our economy, our communities to the onset of the effects of climate change,” he said during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations-European Union (ASEAN-EU) working luncheon in Belgium.

The chief executive pushed for more concrete funding guidelines on mitigating the effects of climate change.

Marcos noted that even if countries are capable of quantifying the damage and loss caused by climate change, some are still clueless on what to do.

“And so we really would like to see much more progress in terms of that, the financing, with the mitigation and the adjustment of our countries who are at great risk to the effects of climate change,” he said.

In his speech during the United Nations General Assembly last September, Marcos also underscored that developing nations are bearing the brunt of climate change.