From Okwe Obi, Abuja
The Health of Mother Earth Foundation has said the proposed $300bn by the United Nations to tackle climate change and carbon emission health challenges in Nigeria and Africa by 2035 would not be enough due to the exchange rate.
The foundation lambasted the UN over the outcome of the Conference of Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which took place in Baku, Azerbaijan, stating that the meeting failed to address the country’s climate change challenges.
Its Executive Director, Nimmo Bassey, at a press briefing in Abuja, said: “When the COP deferred the date for providing needed funds to 2035, there doesn’t appear to be any consideration of the scale of the climate disasters that the world may be facing then. It has also been estimated that the $300 billion would be worth just $175 billion by then using current inflationary trend.”
He claimed that the conference failed on the finance note, adding that the finance COP was shy of mentioning how much the rich polluting nations would contribute to help vulnerable nations adapt and build resilience to the scourge.
According to Bassey, the conference’s core justice basis, which is the Common But Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR), required that rich and highly polluting nations who contributed to the stock of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere must own up to their historical responsibility, cut emissions at source, and provide finance to help vulnerable nations like Nigeria that have not contributed to the problem at any significant level.
He claimed that the principle was essentially turned on its head when the Copenhagen Accord outcome of COP15, held in December 2009, signalled the ascendancy of voluntary emissions reduction by every nation — polluters and non-polluters.
In addition, he argued that COP 29 came up with a miserly $300 billion which would come into effect in 2035, stating that the COP ignored the call of vulnerable nations and global civil society and Indigenous peoples for rich and historically responsible nations to pay up and to do so in trillions, not billions.
He pointed out that when the COP deferred the date for providing needed funds to 2035, there did not appear to be any consideration of the scale of the climate disasters that the world may be facing then.
To this end, he called for community-led solutions to halt pollution at the source and ensure sovereignty of peoples over their forests, water bodies, and general territories.
“We demand the recognition by rich, polluting and industrialised nations, of a climate and ecological debt they owe and payment of same.
“This debt is estimated at an annual rate of $5-8 trillion, and its payment will end the squabbles over climate finances whose targets are set but are never pursued or met.
“We call for an end to false solutions and demand the halting of emissions at source by urgently phasing out fossil fuels. Communities and nations that have kept fossil fuels in the ground should be recognised as climate champions and duly compensated for such actions.
“The people of Yasuni in Ecuador, Ogoni in Nigeria, Lofoten in Norway and others have shown the way.
“We demand an urgent clean-up of areas polluted by fossil fuel exploitation and provision of clean renewable energy to energy-poor communities.
“Nigeria and other African countries should place a ban on geoengineering experimentations, including solar radiation management, ocean fertilisation, rock weathering and others.
“We denounce false solutions and market-based mechanisms that include carbon offset schemes, carbon removals and others.
“The energy and other transitions must promote human rights and be inclusive of gender-responsive efforts with communities duly integrated in the decision-making processes.
“Countries who do not support fossil fuels phase-out should be barred from hosting the COP, and polluters should not be kept out of the COP,” he suggested.