The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) has decried the poor state of facilities in public health institutions in the country.
National Chairman, Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), Dr Mike Ogirima
Prof. Mike Ogirima, President of the association, who said this on Friday, November 17, 2017 during a board meeting of the Association of Professional Bodies of Nigeria (APBN), urged the authorities to as a matter of urgency address the problem.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the meeting was hosted by NMA in Abuja.
Ogirima decried a situation whereby health personnel trained in the country migrate to other countries, while the few left to manage the industry at home become overburdened.
According to him, some of the few personnel managing the industry are dying prematurely due to a combination of factors such as fatigue, poor working environment and obsolete equipment among others.
“Very soon, we shall come up with the doctors’ rights in accordance with our new Physicians pledge paragraph 11, which states that a doctor must take care of his welfare before he or she considers extending such care to patients.
“Government must adhere to doctors rights accordingly,’’ Ogirima said.
Speaking on better working conditions for other health professionals in health institutions, the president urged them to always adopt dialogue, instead of radical attack on doctors.
According to him, they should avoid seeking redress from the courts as well as the National Assembly.
He further urged them to make patients the centre of their practice and minimise rivalry, envy and quest for harmonised remunerations.
Ogirima, however, urged government to jointly liaise with all health professionals on issues bothering on remuneration uniformly.
“When there is a gang up of everyone in a particular of a health institution under the Joint Health Sector Union (JOHESU) against the pay of doctors, the patients are most often neglected.
“Litigations are increasing because the patients are now aware of their rights and only the doctors are called as witnesses as to what went wrong with the patient brought to the hospital,” he said.
On the relevance of APBN, Ogirima said the government was yet to harness the enormous potential and immense professional treasures inherent in the association.
A programme on how agroforestry can be part of the solution to climate change has been published in a policy brief by the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF).
Elsa Galarza, Peru’s Minister of Environment
The programme, launched at a side event at COP23 in Bonn on Wednesday, November 15, 2017 highlights how Agroforestry projects can propel achievement of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) of different countries.
Organised by the government of Peru and the World Agroforestry Centre, the event focused on the Peru’s experience in multi-sectoral process to the NDC implementation.
The Peru government is leading a multi-stakeholder process through a multi-sectorial working group, comprising 13 ministries and the Centre of Strategic Planning to meet NDC and sustainable development objectives. Agroforestry is a potential action being explored, says Elsa Galarza, Peru’s Minister of Environment.
“Agroforestry has the potential to help governments better achieve their NDCs like the case of Peru,” Galarza said.
Officials of the World Agroforestry Centre, says the new policy brief, draw from Peru’s experience, seeking to explore the degree to which agroforestry is represented in current NDCs ambitions, how its application is envisaged and contribution enhanced in other countries.
“The programme is geared at better promoting coordinated climate action and helping governments to promote institutional arrangements for implementation of NDCs via Agroforestry projects,” notes Dr Peter Minang, Leader, Landscapes Governance Theme, World Agroforestry Centre.
According to the policy brief, Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) have emerged as the main tool for defining, communicating and potentially reporting party contributions to the Paris Agreement on climate change.
“Agroforestry has been identified as a key part of most developing country NDCs, hence it is a potentially important contributor to global climate objectives,” the brief stated.
The NDCs align accordingly with relevant national policies as equal priority is given to balancing environmental integrity and development goals in order to ensure implementation of commitments, while transitioning to low emissions and to building climate resilience.
Parity is then sought between adaptation and mitigation objectives.
It also represents a process of prioritisation in which countries consider options and possible scope for contributing to global climate mitigation objectives and increasingly, adaptation objectives beyond 2020.
NDCs cover most of the possible emission reduction pathways and sectors from energy, transport, industry, through land use and land use changes including agriculture and forestry among others.
Depending on the circumstances, mainly the sources of emissions and opportunities for emission reduction and resources, countries choose and prioritize different sectors Dr Minang says.
The policy brief by ICRAF highlights that, “agroforestry is one of the land uses with most potential to fulfill commitments set out in NDCs and reduce emissions from agriculture”.
Estimates of its potential to sequester vary widely, between 1.1–34.2 Pg C1 globally. Over 85% of the 22 NDCs assessed mentioned agroforestry as a strategy for achieving unconditional NDCs commitments.
Data from the brief shows that by converting 25% of deforested areas to agroforestry, about 80% of the non-annex I countries could achieve their unconditional commitments.
The widespread use of agroforestry (about one billion hectares) and the familiarity of smallholder farmers and local practitioners makes it a potential low-hanging fruit for achieving NDCs commitments, emission reduction in agriculture and resilience.
The policy report however cautions that challenges to the smooth contribution of Agroforestry need to be addressed well in advance.
“However, there are financial, policy and technology challenges that should be addressed including land and tree tenure and carbon rights in some countries, potential impacts of climate change on the growing niches of tree species, and limited sources of quality germplasm,” the report noted.
The Government of Sweden announced on Thursday, November 16, 2017 that it would provide additional funds of kr185 million (Swedish Kroner) each to the Adaptation Fund (AF) and the GEF Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF). Also, Belgium has decided to make available an additional grant of €7 million to the LDCF, while the Wallonia region of southern Belgium announced €3.25 million to the fund.
Global Environment Facility (GEF) CEO and Chairperson, Naoko Ishii, at COP23
On the opening day of COP23, the German government announced €100 million to support developing countries in climate change adaptation, including 50 million each to the LDCF and AF. Italy and Ireland also announced financial contributions to the Adaptation Fund.
Welcoming the new financial support for the most vulnerable countries announced here at the UN Climate Conference in Bonn (COP23), the Global Environment Facility (GEF) CEO and Chairperson, Naoko Ishii, said: “It’s the poorest and most vulnerable countries and communities that suffer the most. I want to thank the governments of Germany, Sweden, Italy, Ireland, Belgium and the region of Wallonia, for their support and commitment to help those most impacted build resilience.”
Least developed countries (LDCs) are the most vulnerable to climate change, yet the least able to adapt. In many cases, they lack the technical, financial and institutional capacity to identify the best ways to build resilience. That’s why the UNFCCC decided to establish the LDCF in 2001. To date, the LDCF has supported more than 250 projects in 51 countries.
Naoko Ishii was speaking at the 10th anniversary of the Adaptation Fund being celebrated in Bonn on Thursday.
Since it was established, the Adaptation Fund has grown to commit $462 million to 70 concrete, localised projects that help the most vulnerable communities in developing countries adapt to climate change, while serving nearly 5.5 million direct beneficiaries around the world.
On Monday, the GEF announced $1 million in support of a first of its kind climate resilience investment fund. The fund will boost adaptation efforts in some of the world’s most vulnerable countries. And, for the first time, private investors will have the opportunity to get their return by investing in a fund that exclusively focuses on resilience-related companies
As negotiations at the UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn and the exploratory talks in Berlin on forming a new government are being concluded, Ottmar Edenhofer, Chief Economist of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impacts Research (PIK) and Director of the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC), emphasises that the world must get out of coal, and reform emissions trading and energy taxes
Ottmar Edenhofer, Chief Economist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)
The world is in a coal trap – and the UN Climate Change Conference has not changed that. The coal trap looks like this: from one side we are being pressurised by the sheer mass of available coal which is cheap in price, but the world will have to pay for it dearly in terms of climate risks, health threats and damages to our economies. Because from the other side, the emissions of this dirtiest of all fuels are pushing onto us. Humankind must free itself from this coal trap if it wants to limit the costs of climate change.
Three things can help: first, the dialogue process launched at the conference and referred to as Talanoa in Fiji must not only aim to improve greenhouse gas reduction targets, but bring forward tangible policies to achieve these targets. Secondly, we need effective pricing of CO2 worldwide; pioneers such as the EU must start with a minimum price in 2018. Thirdly, Germany should change its energy taxation in a socially responsible manner during this parliamentary term of the Bundestag. Currently, clean electricity and gas which is at least not that climate-damaging are being taxed at a higher rate than dirty lignite, which is absurd from the perspective of economic research.
The results of coalition talks must be measured against this – we simply have to get out of coal, we need to reform emissions trading and energy taxes. In the end, this is what serves our economy best. Rebuilding our energy system offers enormous opportunities for modernisation. From power generation from sun and wind, to smarter power grids and storage, to households, it’s all about the digitalisation that has been called for by so many.
An event showcasing initiatives to support measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) and the transparency of action and support was held on Monday, November 13, 2017, during the 23rd Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP23) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Bonn, Germany.
COP23 High Level Segment family photo
The expert panel – the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the UNDP/UN Environment Global Support Programme (GSP), and the Initiative for Climate Action Transparency (ICAT-UNEP-DTU) – presented support initiatives focused on the enhancement of developing countries’ national capacity to effectively participate in the existing MRV arrangements under the Convention, as well as their preparations to implement the modalities, procedures and guidelines of the transparency framework under the Paris Agreement. A representative from the National Council for Climate Change and the Clean Development Mechanism of the Dominican Republic also provided their experience and lessons learned in mobilising and accessing necessary support in a timely manner.
The event was moderated by the UNFCCC secretariat. It was well-attended and generated interest and views from the audience during an interactive Question and Answer session.
Overall, the panel discussion reinforced the idea that effective participation in the current MRV arrangements under the Convention and transparency framework under the Paris Agreement requires long-term efforts for capacity-building support in developing countries and a systemic approach to build robust and sustainable national MRV systems. The panelists highlighted the need to ensure that the information prepared and submitted in national reports is relevant to national development process by informing relevant policies, plans and thus gaining political buy-in at national level. The degree to which support opportunities are effectively utilised can be enhanced by a high degree of political commitment from policy-makers and government officials.
The representatives of support providers outlined their initiatives available to developing countries to strengthen or establish national MRV systems. The financial, technical and capacity-building support has been provided in areas of, inter alia, developing legal frameworks and instruments; enhancing or consolidating existing institutional arrangements; improving data collection and management; and producing high quality national communications and biennial update reports (also known as BURs).
The Dominican Republic shared their experience and lessons learned in conducting a technical, institutional and legal analysis to examine the current situation and identify the gaps in regards to the main elements that make up a national MRV/Transparency System that is compatible with national data management practices as well as with reporting requirements to the UNFCCC. Their aim is to produce a mapping of existing relevant institutions that will play a role in the institutional arrangement to implement the MRV system; and to create a road map detailing the activities that need to be implemented for obtaining reliable and regular information on GHG emissions and reductions.
The interactive discussion with the audience led to an emphasis on the need for developing countries to encapsulate the knowledge and experience gained from the MRV process, as well as showcase their efforts and progress made.
The Southern Indian state of Telanagana has embarked on a unique way to get rid of open defecation, using drones.
Drones
As a pilot project, cops have deployed drones on the banks of a local reservoir in the state’s Karimnagar district to prevent people from defecating near the dam.
The Lower Manair Dam is a drinking water source for the people of Karimnagar town and “if successful, the scheme will be replicated in other districts also,” officials said on Friday, November 17, 2017.
Local police chief Kamalasan Reddy said the scheme has already started yielding results.
“The number of people indulging in open defecation has come down drastically,” he told the media.
Urination and defecation in the open are common in several parts of rural India and even in some semi-urban areas and a few urban areas too.
This is despite the Indian government offering cash incentives to subsidise construction of toilets, and initiating hygiene and sanitation awareness campaigns like “No Toilet, No Bride”.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made eliminating open defecation in this country a priority, and wants every home to be installed with a toilet by 2019.
The 23rd Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP23) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Bonn, Germany is the first UN Climate Change Conference to receive official certification for eco-friendly performance.
German Federal Environment Minister, Barbara Hendricks, with Fijian cultural dancers
The German Federal Environment Minister, Barbara Hendricks, and UN Climate Change Deputy Executive Secretary, Ovais Sarmad, were on Friday, November 17, 2017 presented with the Eco-management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) certificate. The certificate verifies the event management’s successful and environmentally-friendly organisation of the conference.
Event managers were already aiming for the consistent prevention of environmental burdens when planning began eleven months ago, and their work was documented in the environmental statement required under EMAS.
Hendricks said: “We have succeeded in making this Climate Change Conference environmentally friendly and sustainable. This is an important signal for a conference which is not just about negotiations, but also about taking action. It goes without saying that there is still room for improvement in certain areas – this COP only marks the start of the learning curve. I highly recommend using EMAS as the yardstick for future Climate Change Conferences.”
Sarmad said: “I want to thank the German government, the people of Bonn and my own staff for embracing wholeheartedly the UN climate conference 2017 and its ambition to be the greenest COP ever. We are fortunate indeed to be headquartered in a country that is working towards a determined transition to an environmentally-friendly and ever more sustainable future. That said, achieving the high EMAS certification approval was not a given.
“But here I think we have together raised the sustainability bar of UN conferences with some 28,800 people participating over the two weeks. I am sure many will look to what has been achieved, within the UN system and beyond, for inspiration on how all events and conferences can play their part in meeting the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals.”
All goals and measures were documented in the environmental statement, then assessed on-site over several days by environmental verifiers and subsequently validated. Such measures included waste avoidance and strict waste separation, climate-friendly catering, excellent local public transport, climate-neutral shuttle services and environmentally sound and reusable materials also for the temporary structures. Energy supply and water consumption are also among the areas to be reviewed in the follow-up.
The role of the 650 volunteers who supported the conference and received training on COP23 environmental issues, should not be underestimated. They inform participants, for instance, about the numerous drinking fountains throughout the conference premises (almost 50) where participants can refill their COP23 reusable bottles they received on registering. The environmental verifier confirmed that this approach also worked well.
After the conference, data on consumption, collected data and the goals and measures of the original environmental statement will be evaluated and examined again by the environmental verifier. This will include a precise calculation of the unavoidable greenhouse gas emissions caused, for example, by the arrival and departure of the participants. These emissions will be offset with certified emission reduction (CERs) credits from particularly ambitious international climate action projects.
The IHK (The Chamber of Commerce and Industry) of Duisburg, which is responsible for Bonn, also handed over the registration certificate for the official EMAS database. COP23 will be added to the EMAS register, which now contains over 9,000 sites of companies and organisations committed to environmental protection.
Nigeria is in the top three worst countries in the world for the number of people without toilets, reveals WaterAid’s State of the World’s Toilets 2017 report. As a result, nearly 123 million people still suffer the fear and indignity of relieving themselves in the open or in unsafe or unhygienic toilets – a situation that is most dangerous for girls and women.
A school toilet for girls
“Out of Order”, WaterAid’s third-annual analysis of the world’s toilets released ahead of World Toilet Day, reveals that,globally, one in three people still have nowhere decent to go to the toilet, and demonstrates how women and girls bear the brunt of this global crisis. For more than 1.1 billion women and girls, this injustice results in an increased risk of poor health, limited education, harassment and even attack.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, comes in at third place for the worst countries for the numbers of people with access to basic sanitation. Despite being sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest economy, it is also sixth worst for addressing open defecation, with the percentage of people defecating in the open increasing from 22.6% in 2000 to 25.5% in 2015.
The proportion of people without basic sanitation has also gone up, and two thirds of schools have no decent toilets. This sanitation crisis contributed to the deaths of nearly 60,000 children each year from related diarrhoeal diseases.
Oluseyi Abdulmalik, WaterAid Nigeria’s Communications and Media Manager, said: “Seven in 10 people in Nigeria have nowhere safe to go to the toilets, equating to an overwhelming 123 million people. This denial of human rights contributes to the deaths of around 165 children under five every single day, and holds women and girls back from fulfilling their potential.
“We need urgent action to turn this situation around. Addressing the sanitation crisis with particular focus on the needs of women and girls will help lift entire communities out of poverty.
“We often call on Government to prioritise sanitation and investment in the sector and while this is as it should be, sanitation is really everyone’s responsibility. We all have a part to play – as individuals, property/home owners, families, work groups, unions and associations, civil society organisations, the media, the private sector, and yes, Government at all levels.”
Among the other findings in the report released by WaterAid this World Toilet Day:
All 10 of the world’s worst countries for access to basic sanitation by percentage are in sub-Saharan Africa, where only 28% of people have a decent toilet, and children are 14 times more likely to die before the age of five than in developed regions.
Ethiopia is top of the list of countries with the greatest percentage of people living without decent toilets. Conversely, Ethiopia has also made the most progress in reducing open defecation, largely by investing in rudimentary community latrines.
With more than 355 million women and girls still waiting for access to basic sanitation, India tops the list for the longest queue for the toilet. However, there has been immense progress through the Swachh Bharat Mission, helping put India in the top 10 for reducing open defecation and improving access to basic sanitation.
Djibouti, a major route for refugees from the Yemen war, has the worst figures for open defecation, with a 7.2% increase since 2000.
Between 2000 and 2015, the number of people in the world defecating in the open dropped from 1.2 billion (20% of the global population) to 892 million (12%). Despite this progress, it is still a huge problem, resulting in enough faeces to fill seven bathtubs every second going into the environment untreated.
It is unacceptable that one in three of the world’s population have nowhere safe to go to the toilet. This is a denial of their basic human rights and contributes to the appalling death toll from diarrhoeal disease of one child every two minutes. A community without toilets is particularly hard for women and girls who are exposed to an increased risk of harassment and attack when finding somewhere to do their business, find it more difficult to cope during their periods, and spend more time both ill themselves and caring for those who are sick.
The world has promised that by 2030 everyone will have a safe toilet but, whilst there has been considerable progress made over the last couple of decades, this target will not be met unless there is a step change in ambition and action.
WaterAid is calling for governments to:
Invest more money and spend it transparently and efficiently, paying particular attention to the needs of women and girls
Promote the value of sanitation for gender equality and female empowerment, and involve women as leaders to ensure solutions address the challenges women and girls face.
Improve coordination to create gender-friendly toilets in all schools, healthcare facilities, work environments and public spaces.
Combine plans to improve access to sanitation with efforts to redistribute water and hygiene work, which is predominantly the responsibility of women and girls.
What WaterAid Nigeria is doing this World Toilet Day
The theme for 2017 World Toilet Day is “Wastewater” in line with the Sustainable Development Goal’s aim to reach everyone, everywhere with sanitation, and halve the proportion of untreated wastewater and increase recycling and safe reuse. For that to be achieved, we need everyone’s waste to be contained, transported, treated and disposed of in a safe and sustainable way.
“This World Toilet Day is an opportunity for us to strengthen and sustain partnerships among stakeholders, especially aimed at raising awareness, mobilising and inspiring community actions to tackle the global sanitation crisis. WaterAid is joining the Youth WASH Network, UNICEF, Action Against Hunger, the Federal Ministry of Water Resources and other partners under the auspices of the National Task Group on Sanitation to commemorate this year’s World Toilet Day with a Toilet4All campaign.”
The campaign is an open defecation free crusade aimed at using public lectures, edutainment and media communication as a strategy for mobilising everyone, everywhere to construct, use and maintain toilets as well as promotes wastewater management and recycling in schools, healthcare facilities, communities and public places across the country.
The Toilet4All campaign also supports Nigeria’s 2025 Open Defecation Roadmap spearheaded by the NTGS and supported by the Federal Ministry of Water Resources. The vision is to engage and empower citizens towards construction, use and maintenance of toilets as well as promote knowledge about wastewater management and recycling in schools, healthcare facilities, communities and public places across the country as an effective strategy for diseases prevention.
The campaign also seeks to promote, inspire and empower young people and women in communities to serve as advocate for wastewater management, recycling and reuse of solid and liquid waste; increase awareness on the effects of indiscriminate disposal of wastewater on shallow ground /surface water system on human health which is the major cause of typhoid, diarrhoea etc.
Non-state actors following negotiations at the Bonn climate talks (COP23) have deplored the resort to empty words on climate change by global leaders during the high-level segment of the two-week conference.
Prime Minister of Fiji, Voreqe Frank Bainimarama. Photo credit: Fijian Government
Fijian Prime Minister and COP23 President, Frank Bainimarama, at the high-level segment on Thursday, November 16, 2017 called on the country representatives to remain focused to ensure a successful outcome to the conference. “Future generations are counting on us. Let us act now,” he said.
Sequel to Bainimarama’s speech, a young boy from Fiji recounted the story of how his home was destroyed in a recent natural disaster, asking government representatives in the room “What can you do?” to protect the climate. “Climate change is here to stay, unless you do something about it,” he told the delegates.
Germany’s President, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said that recent extreme weather events have shown that time was pressing. “I have no doubt that this urgency warns us to make haste and act decisively,” he said.
The “historic climate agreement” reached in Paris in 2015 and “the path we have taken since” must remain irreversible. “Paris can only be called a breakthrough if we follow up on the agreement with actions,” said Steinmeier.
Hopes for a strong statement on Germany’s climate goals and the future role of coal were dashed as Chancellor Angela Merkel disappointed only called on the world to walk the talk on climate at the global conference in Bonn.
“This conference must send out the serious signal that the Paris Agreement was a starting point, but the work has only begun.” Today’s pledges in the nationally-determined contributions were not enough to keep global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius, she said. “Now it’s about walking the talk.”
Speaking after the chancellor, French President Emmanuel Macron, said that the summit should send the message that “we can all come together” to mobilise the necessary public and private funds to act on climate.
To guarantee quality science needed to make climate policy decisions, Macron proposed that the EU should fill the financing gap for the IPCC left open by the US administration’s decision to reduce funding.
“France will meet that challenge, and I would like to see the largest number of European countries by our side,” said Macron. “All together, we can compensate for the loss of US funding.”
Reacting almost immediately after the high-level segment, civil society groups from across the world described their statements as empty words with no concrete plan of action.
The Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, (PACJA) accused the leaders of “playing hide and seek” with the lives of Africans who according to them are being cut short daily due to historic and ongoing actions of the developed world against the climate.
What we need, according to John Bideri, co-Chair of the Alliance, are “enhanced actions on the provision of $100 billion per year up to 2020 and a new finance goal which should reflect the scientific requirements and needs of African countries.”
“Advocacy-tainted speeches by leaders of polluter countries will not keep global temperatures from unprecedented levels, what is important now is a finance goal that will first and foremost help African countries to adapt, mitigate and cover loss and damage arising from climate change impacts,” Mithika Mwenda, PACJA’s Secretary General, added.
“This message from the host of a world climate conference must sound cruel to the poorest countries most strongly affected by climate change,” commented Oxfam Germany’s climate expert Jan Kowalzig.
Germany ran the risk of missing its climate goals, while in Berlin “three out of four parties to a potential Jamaica coalition’ block the measures needed to prevent such an embarrassing failure”.
Greenpeace Germany’s Managing Director Sweelin Heuss said that Merkel “avoided to give the only answer she had to give in Bonn: When will Germany fully exit coal?” Without a coal exit, Germany could not meet the pledge it made in Paris. “That’s a disastrous signal coming out of this climate conference,” said Heuss.
Representatives from science, climate activists, and small island states appealed to Merkel to meet the country’s 2020 CO2 reduction target ahead of her much-anticipated speech.
Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), said Germany had the ability to quit coal use but instead there was the “perverse” situation where it generated power from coal, which then was exported.
“Angela Merkel has been a great climate champion but her credibility is hanging in the balance,” Jennifer Morgan, Executive Director of Greenpeace International, said.
President Hilda Heine, of the Marshall Islands, added: “We are just two metres above sea level. For Germany to phase-out coal and follow a 1.5°C pathway would be a signal of hope to us and all other nations in danger from climate change.”
As the COP winds to a close Friday, speculations are rife that the conference will end without substantially addressing relevant concerns on temperature limits, finance and other means of implementation for the Paris Agreement.
To ensure the timely implementation of its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), Nigeria says it has developed a robust National Sectoral Action Plan across the five priority sectors, which are: agriculture, energy, transportation, industry and oil & gas.
Environment Minister of State and Head of Delegation to COP23, Ibrahim Usman Jibril, delivering the Nigeria National Statement
The West African nation added that it had also embraced issuance of green bond, ostensibly as an alternative source of funding green projects that would reduce emissions and provide robust climate infrastructure needed in the country.
The submission formed part of the Nigerian National Statement delivered by the Environment Minister of State and Head of Delegation, Ibrahim Usman Jibril, on Thursday, November 16, 2017 at the 23rd Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP23) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change holding in Bonn, Germany.
The minister added that this would also manifest in renewable energy, low carbon transport, water infrastructure and sustainable agriculture. He disclosed that Nigeria would launch the first “Sovereign Green Bonds” in Africa in the coming weeks.
“Similarly, we will continue to show a profound interest in contributing to effective global action on climate change,” he said, adding that science has proved beyond reasonable doubt the certainty of the phenomenon.
“So, we must stand united to ensure that the outcome of this Conference comprehensively address what we need to do as prescribed by the Paris Agreement to deal with fundamental challenges of climate change. We are prepared to work with all Parties, in the spirit of collaboration and cooperation with a view to achieving the outcome that will be universally agreeable and beneficial to mankind of all generations,” said the minister.
According to him, up-scaling funding to address the impacts of climate change on livelihoods and ecosystems through an over-arching financial architecture to finance adaptation and mitigation measures is of high priority to Nigeria.
“This should include implementing the gender action plan under the Lima Work Programme on Gender,” he stated, adding that Nigeria is firmly committed to seeing that current areas of contentions with respect to the financial mechanism, adaptation framework and institutional arrangements, technology transfer and capacity building are resolved to the benefit of all Parties.
“We need to urgently move to remove barriers that impede developing countries from effectively accessing global climate finance such as the Adaptation Fund, and the Green Climate Change Fund (GCF), amongst others,” declared the minister.
We called for a focused session that would, according to him, make substantive progress through constructive discussions across all areas of the Paris Agreement work programme “in a balanced manner to enable us come up with a first-hand information on the implementation guidelines of the Paris Agreement well ahead of the 2018 Session including accelerating the implementation of the pre-2020 commitments and actions and increasing the pre-2020 ambition in accordance with paragraphs 3 and 4 of decision 1/CP.19.”
He added: “We welcome the ‘Talanoa Dialogue’ and seek your guidance and direction as we proceed in the spirit of collaboration and trust in line with the Paris Agreement. This will lead us collectively to a common ground for a successful 2018 facilitative dialogue. Nigeria also shares the same circumstance and views with African member states in terms of NDC implementation capacities.
“We are not in any way proposing to re-open the land mark Agreement but we support the call from the African member States that the best way to proceed is to show a demonstration of flexibility for African countries on climate change actions based on the principles and provisions of the convention and to ensure that differentiation is clearly reflected.”
