PRESIDENT Arroyo has ordered Public Works to turn off ?all neon and high-wattage lights? on billboards along roads and highways at 9 every night to reduce carbon emissions.

In her Executive Order 774, Mrs. Arroyo also ordered the department to offer incentives to people converting their rooftops into gardens instead of leasing them to advertisers.

?The [Public Works Department] shall lead a task group to require all neon and high-wattage lights on billboards and outdoor advertisements along roads and highways to be shut off at 9 p.m.,? she said.

?Should the owners desire to turn them on after 9 p.m., they shall be charged a fee equivalent to their carbon footprint computed according to their wattage consumption.?

Mrs. Arroyo said all billboard structures not complying with regulations would be removed.

?We will implement that immediately,? Public Works Under-secretary Rafael Yabut said, adding the order was signed on Dec. 26 but released only this week.

?I don?t think there is a need for consultations because consultations were already done before that order was released, and in coordination with the Department of Energy,? said Yabut who is in charge of billboards and other outdoor advertisements.

Mrs. Arroyo also ordered Foreign Affairs and the Justice Department to study how countries emitting large quantities of carbon dioxide could be held accountable for damage to the environment.

Both agencies may tap the talent of law professors and top-caliber litigation and environmental lawyers worldwide in their study, she said.

Last year, the United Nations warned that global temperatures would continue to increase and raise sea levels by up to 59 centimeters by 2010, and mainly due to carbon emissions.

Heherson Alvarez, presidential adviser on global warming and climate change, said the Philippines would push for a greater contribution from developed countries, the major sources of carbon emissions, in stopping climate change.

?We are in a stronger moral position to demand from them to do their share,? he said.

?Industrialized nations who pollute more should help us who are at the receiving end.? Joyce Pangco Pa?ares