President Muhammadu Buhari departs Abuja on Saturday, December 1, 2018 for Katowice, Poland, to attend the 24th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP24) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina, who made the revelation in a statement on Friday, revealed that the COP holds from Dec. 2 to 14.

The COP24 Summit, which will be held at the International Conference Centre (MCK) and the adjacent Spodek Arena in Katowice, is being convened under the Presidency of Poland.

According to the organisers, the conference is expected to finalise the rules for implementation of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change under the Paris Agreement Work Programme (PAWP) – the Rulebook for implementation.

The presidential aide stated that, during the Leaders’ Summit at COP24, President Buhari would deliver a national statement highlighting Nigeria’s commitment to addressing climate change by implementing the goals set out in its National Determined Contributions (NDCs).

He said the president would also use the occasion to accentuate Nigeria’s willingness to work with international partners to reverse the negative effects of climate change in Africa and the world over.

Adesina said the president would also highlight the need for developed nations to scale up their emission reduction activities in order to limit the increase in average global temperatures to well below 2 degrees centigrade between now and 2020.

The Leaders’ Summit is expected to adopt a ‘‘Declaration on Solidarity and Just Transition Silesia,’’ – named after the region of Poland where this year’s climate conference is taking place.

He said observed that Nigeria, as a member of the Committee of the African Heads of State on Climate Change – a group of 10 African countries that meets and takes positions concerning issues of climate change on behalf of the continent, would continue to address the challenges occasioned by climate change.

“Nigeria has been at the forefront of advancing policies and initiatives aimed at addressing significant challenges occasioned by climate change such as reviving the Lake Chad, halting and reversing desertification, flooding, ocean surge and oil spillage”, he stated.

He said that President Buhari would continue to champion these pressing issues at COP24 in Katowice, among others.

Adesina also said the president would reiterate Nigeria’s position on the need for African countries to access financial resources, especially the Green Climate Fund to draw up climate change adaptation policies and actions for implementation.

“The Nigerian delegation will also showcase the policy measures and actions of the Federal Government at ensuring environmental sustainability and effectively combating climate change through several side events within the Nigerian pavilion.

“While in Poland, President Buhari will hold an interactive session with the Nigerian community in that country.

“The Nigerian leader is also scheduled to hold bilateral meetings with the President of Poland Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki,’’ the statement added.

President will be accompanied on the trip by governors Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, Yahaya Bello and Abubakar Bello of Enugu, Kogi and Niger states, respectively.

Others on his entourage include the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, the Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu, and the Minister of State for Environment, Ibrahim Jibril.

By Ismaila Chafe

Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for long-term input, an innovative approach to consolidate and develop the green ecological barrier in North China.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks as he gave instructions on the construction of the Three-North Shelterbelt Forest Programme.

“The programme is a major ecological project implemented together with the reform and opening-up drive, and a signature project in building an ecological civilisation,” Xi said.

Xi commended the unremitting efforts made over the past 40 years, stressing that the programme had generated significant ecological, economic and social benefits.

He added that the programme had equally become a successful model in international ecological management.

However, Xi warned that ecological system in the Three-North regions (the northeastern, northern and northwestern regions) remained fragile.

He said continued efforts in promoting the programme would not only boost regional sustainable development, but also the sustainable development of the Chinese nation.

Premier Li Keqiang gave written instructions, calling for continued efforts to push forward the programme, while making overall consideration for demand and factors such as water resource carrying capacity.

“Efforts should be made to jointly promote the programme with the country’s rural vitalisation strategy and battle against poverty in order to enhance afforestation while increasing local residents’ income and build a more solid ecological barrier for sustainable development,” Keqiang said.

A meeting on the programme was convened in Beijing giving awards to individuals and organisations that made outstanding contributions to the programme.

Vice Premier Han Zheng said at the meeting that construction of Three-North Shelterbelt Forest Programme still faced difficulties and challenges.

He called for greater effort to protect the ecological environment, promote high-quality development of the programme and consolidate the green ecological barrier.

Zheng also called on local governments to learn from the spirit of Three-North Shelterbelt Forest Programme and strengthen protection of natural ecological system.

The 2018 UN Biodiversity Conference of the Parties (COP14) closed on Thursday, November 29 with broad international agreement on reversing the global destruction of nature and biodiversity loss threatening all forms of life on Earth.

To combat the crisis, governments agreed to accelerate action to achieve the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, agreed in 2010, from now until 2020. Work to achieve these targets will take place at the global, regional, national and subnational levels.

The meeting also agreed on a comprehensive and participatory process for developing the post-2020 global biodiversity framework anticipated to be agreed upon at the next Conference of Parties (COP15) in Beijing, China in 2020. The framework aims to safeguard nature and biodiversity for decades to come.

Dr. Cristiana Paşca Palmer, Executive Secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, thanked delegates for their work and their commitments at the meeting. Throughout the conference, she laid out the scientific case that humankind is currently on an unsustainable path that involves a continuing steep loss of biodiversity with cascading consequences for nature and for human society, including in the global economy, the availability of food and water, and human security, health and wellbeing.

Dr. Paşca Palmer said: “Nature is dynamic and interrelated – and so must be our response. We must move from the very real incremental change that we have created to a model that continues to push incremental wins while also fundamentally reaching for transformational change. As this COP shows, we have already begun this journey.”

To engage all sectors and stakeholders, the Government of the Arab Republic of Egypt, the Government of the People’s Republic of China, and the Secretariat of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity announced the launch of a Sharm El-Sheik to Beijing Action Agenda for Nature and People to catalyse, collect, and celebrate actions taken in support of biodiversity conservation and its sustainable use.

Yasmine Fouad, Minister of Environment of the Arab Republic of Egypt and COP 14 President, reiterated that ministers and heads of delegation welcomed Egypt’s initiative to promote a coordinated approach to address biodiversity loss, climate change and land and ecosystems degradation.

She called on the United Nations General Assembly to convene a summit on biodiversity at the level of heads of State prior to the CBD COP15 in 2020, and for countries to complete the achievement of the CBD Strategic Plan before the end of this decade.

From the “city of peace”, Sharm El Sheikh, Minister Fouad stressed Egypt’s appreciation for the opportunity to host COP 14 with representations of delegations from countries, organisations and institutions over 17 days under one common slogan, “Investing in biodiversity for People and Planet.”

“We need to think seriously about system transformation and a new social contract to protect the global commons,” Naoko Ishii, CEO and Chairperson of the Global Environment Facility said at the opening of COP14. “Nature and people deserve a new deal,” Ishii said. “2020 offers one last opportunity for the global community to get its act together – let’s not miss it!”

Other announcements and decisions made at the conference include:

• An African Ministerial Summit held immediately prior to COP 14 produced a Ministerial Declaration as well as the Pan-African Action Agenda on Ecosystem Restoration for Increased Resilience;
• COP14 decision on cooperation also called for UN General Assembly to designate 2021 to 2030 as the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration;
• The Business and Biodiversity Forum produced dialogues and recommendations to further strengthen private sector and corporate engagement in support of the biodiversity and mainstreaming agenda;
• Building on the theme of the conference, COP14 adopted a decision for a long-term strategic approach to mainstreaming biodiversity into the work of a number of productive sectors, including energy and mining, infrastructure, manufacturing and processing and health, with a view to contribute to the post 2020 process;
• A Nature and Culture Summit announced activities to advance work on biological and cultural diversity in collaboration with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and indigenous peoples and local communities;
• Voluntary guidelines were adopted on various issues, including on the design and effective implementation of ecosystem-based approaches to climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction; on the repatriation of traditional knowledge and on integration of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures into the wider land- and seascapes;
• Decision for further studies and discussions under a number of Ad Hoc Technical Expert Groups were also adopted, in particular groups were agreed for synthetic biology and digital sequence information.  The meeting also adopted a procedure for avoiding conflicts of interest in expert groups under all three bodies of the Convention;
• The meeting adopted important decisions on issues related to the three objectives of the Convention, including: pollinators, sustainable wildlife management, health, invasive alien species and resource mobilisation;
• The meeting adopted decisions on issues related to the the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilisation and the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, including risk assessment and risk management, socio-economic considerations, specialised international access and benefit-sharing instruments in the context of Article 4, paragraph 4 of the Nagoya Protocol, and on a Global Multilateral Benefit Sharing Mechanism, and others.