The head of a major UN agency who was nominated to the post by the Trump administration said on Tuesday, September 11, 2018 that he believes climate change to be a global threat.

David Beasley, a former Republican Governor of South Carolina, was appointed executive director of the World Food Programme in March 2017.

He spoke at the launch of a UN report that announced a rise to 821 million in the number of hungry people in the world, and listed climate change as a key factor behind the increase.

“Climate impact is real: 22 to 23 million people alone were impacted and forcibly displaced because of changing climate,” Beasley said in a news conference in Rome.

When asked to reconcile those comments with his political allegiance, Beasley said nobody could dispute that climate change is happening, but it is debatable whether it is man-made.

“The climate is impacting people all over the world, you cannot stick your head in the sand as regards to this. What’s causing it, that’s a different discussion,” he said.

“As a former U.S. Republican, I don’t know of hardly any Republicans or Democrats (…) who disagree that climate is changing,” he added.

U.S. President, Donald Trump, has pulled of the Paris climate agreement, and in 2012, years before entering politics, he dismissed climate change as a “hoax” created by the Chinese to harm U.S. manufacturing.

Beasley deplored global indifference to rising hunger rates, suggesting that perhaps this was because “everybody is obsessed with Trump news, Brexit or whatever the case may be.’’

“Every five seconds, a child is dying from starvation, while there’s 300 trillion dollars’ worth of wealth in the world today. That’s unacceptable, it is inexcusable,” he charged.

In a presentation at the #RiseForClimate and Stop the Soot Summit in Port Harcourt, Nigeria on September 11, 2018, Nnimmo Bassey, Director of the ecological think tank, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), urged his audience to rise and take real climate action

I bring you greetings of peace and a pledge to stand in solidarity with you all until the dangerous ecological problems confronting us and our children become a thing of the past. Our ecological challenges widespread and suffocating. The clearest for those of us in Port Harcourt and the Niger Delta at large, is the visibly polluted and unhealthy air that we have been forced to breathe.

We applaud our brothers and sisters that have championed and continue to champion the Stop the Soot campaign. This is one campaign that has been backed by research, competence and high-level articulation of the health and debilitating impacts of soot, or black carbon, that citizens have been condemned to breathe. The petition that has been raised on this matter should be endorsed by all citizens of Nigerians, not just residents of the Niger Delta who breathe this toxic air.

The soot is the manifestation of insidious atrocities that have gone on unchallenged in our environment. It is one that cannot be swept under the carpet. Our creeks have been dastardly polluted, indeed coated by crude oil and we have silently continued to drink the polluted water. Our lands have been heavily contaminated, our crops have wilted, rotted and we have gone home empty handed at harvest time, yet we eat our rotted tubers and continue to fall into the grip of disease. Sixty years of gas flaring has secured huge profits for oil companies and limitless revenue for politicians to fight over, but for poor communities these have meant cancers, bronchitis, asthmas, skin diseases, birth defects and acid rain, to name a few.

Our people on the coast line are continuously losing land to coastal erosion. Inshore and offshore fishing grounds are being lost to oil pollution and ocean acidification daily. We must ask the question: what have we gained from sixty years of crude oil extraction?

Today we are gathered to examine two issues at this summit. One is soot. The other is climate change. Our determination is to stop the soot. Our plan is to tackle the climate menace. Their root cause is one. To achieve the results, we need to and must aim at the root. That root is well known: fossil fuels.

It has long been determined that for the world to have a reasonable chance of keeping to a 2 degrees Celsius temperature rise above 1750 or pre-industrial levels, at least two thirds of known fossil reserves must be left in the ground. This is a scientific fact attested to by relevant global scientific and expert bodies. We cannot wish this away. Fossil fuels must be left in the ground. We have no luxury of choice on this matter. Delay will be like the case of the emperor that was dancing shaku shaku while his domain was burning.

Some Nigerians think that if new oil or gas fields are not opened our economy will collapse. Nothing can be farther from the truth. It is not about new oil fields, it is about stopping oil theft and reckless oil pollution. It is known that industrial scale oil theft is ongoing in our nation. If we consider estimates of stolen crude that we have heard from government officials over the years and combine these with the amount of oil regularly being spilled into our environment, we can safely say that, indeed, our oil output would almost double if the stealing and the spilling are stopped.

Is it oil that is keeping our economy afloat? Now that we are pumping oil at full throttle, how many of you have public electric power supply? Our gas flares or furnaces burn without ceasing, but our people still cook with firewood. If oil is boosting our economy, how come many in the formal sector go for months without wages and over sixty per cent of Nigerians eke a living in the informal sector? Why is virtually every building having a shop at the frontage? Where is almost everyone one sort of petty trader or the other?

The soot that is choking us is from the burning of fossil fuels. The sources are well known, even though officials are shy to agree. These sources include: the aged refineries, the gas flares, the bush refineries, oil spills and stolen crude that are set on fire by security forces.

We cannot emphasise this loudly enough: the soot that is choking us is from the burning of fossil fuels. The soot is choking us and our children. The solution is for us to choke the soot. We can only choke the soot by choking all the sources of soot. Stop the gas flares. Stop the ancient refineries. Stop the burning of spilled crude as well as stolen crude and illegal refineries.

We must rise and take real climate action. This is an emergency. We cannot afford any more delay. Stop the soot. Stop the pollution. Let us think and think hard. The old mindset will not get us out of the pit. Whether we like it or not, the petrol age is drawing to a close. We must quickly close the chapter of crass pollution. Now is the time to think. It is time to act. It is time to prepare for life after oil.

The Government of the Netherlands and the Global Centre on Adaptation on Monday, September 10, 2018 unveiled plans for the formation of a forthcoming Global Commission on Adaptation, featuring the Netherlands as a key convener, which will be overseen by the 8th Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon, Co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Bill Gates, and World Bank CEO Kristalina Georgieva.

The new Commission will be co-hosted by the Global Centre on Adaptation, an international organisation hosted by the Netherlands, in partnership with World Resources Institute. It will formally be launched on October 16 in The Hague, at which time the names of some 20 leading global Commissioners and 10 convening countries will be announced.

The announcement was made during an event marking the new construction of an innovative climate-adaptive floating office in Rotterdam by Dutch Minister Van Nieuwenhuizen (Infrastructure and Water Management), the initiating Commissioner. Van Nieuwenhuizen noted that the Commission will elevate the political visibility of adaptation and will focus on solutions, catalyzing a global adaptation movement and accelerating action.

“For the Netherlands, looking for solutions to water issues is part of everyday life. This is not yet the case in other areas and countries that also increasingly are faced with extreme weather,” the Minister stated. “Climate change is making itself felt almost on a daily basis. Take, for example, the prolonged drought that currently is affecting large parts of Europe. By launching this Commission, we aim to press the need for worldwide climate adaptation,” she added.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, “Today’s announcements by the Government of the Netherlands is a critical step forward to set in motion more vigorous attention to and action around climate adaptation. I congratulate Minister van Nieuwenhuizen for her role as an initiator of the Global Commission on Adaptation and look forward to collaborating with her and other global leaders as we embark on our worldwide mission to accelerate adaptation.”

The floating office to be constructed in Rotterdam will be home to the Global Centre on Adaptation, which has expanded its mission under new leadership. In addition to its office in Rotterdam, the Global Centre will have an office in Groningen, which will be inaugurated by Mr. Ban on October 17. Patrick Verkooijen, the newly appointed Chief Executive Office of the Global Centre, said his goal is to inspire clarity behind the adaptation agenda and pursue pragmatic steps that can help address policies, investments, financing, and governance needed for more adaptation action globally.

“We act as a solutions broker,” Verkooijen said, “bringing together governments, the private sector, civil society, intergovernmental bodies, and knowledge institutions that can address the obstacles slowing down adaptation action.”

Of the Global Centre, Mr. Ban noted that “the role of Global Center on Adaptation will be significant because we need all societies to learn from one another.  Under the exemplary and bold leadership of Patrick Verkooijen, the Center will help accelerate transformation at scale and at speed.”