An Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth (ERA/FoEN) led coalition of civil society groups and Host Communities (HoComs) has given a timely warning to the Federal Government of Nigeria, Shell and other concerned authorities, that unless they stop dilly-dallying on the moves to clean up the environment of Ogoni communities of Rivers State, the laudable directives by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)  actualised, and the Ogoni communities and the other communities of the Niger Delta region would not be free from the decades of unsafe oil exploration, huge contamination and militancy.

Dr. Godwin Uyi Ojo, ERA/FoEN executive director and an arrowhead of the coalition, made the timely call, following a week long activity of the coalition of the groups held recently in the Port Harcourt, capital of Rivers State. The forum was aimed at finding concrete solutions to the snail speed and thwarting of the cleanup exercise, as well as with some other burning environmental problems facing the Niger Delta region in particular and Nigeria at large.

Addressing journalists at the occasion partly marking the 6th Anniversary of the UNEP Report Recommendations, Dr. Ojo hinted that although the people of Ogoni and stakeholders around the globe received UNEP’s directives for clean-up of the Ogoni environmental mess with great enthusiasm, since August 4, 2011 (six years ago), there was little or no plans on the ground to show a commitment to the project, more so that Vice President Yemi Osinbanjo officially visited Ogoni last year, to flag off the exercise.

“There is gross inadequate funding and only $10 million has been released from the $200 million pledged by Shell and the federal government of Nigeria for the 2017 fiscal budget. Furthermore, there is no statutory budget provision for the cleanup in the 2017 national budget,” the groups stressed.

The statement by the groups also stressed as follows: “The unease of the Ogoni people has been further heightened by statements credited to the Minister of State for Environment that government was not in a hurry to commence cleanup and fail, and would rather take its time to get it right before commencement. The cause to such lame excuses for the delayed commencement shows that government is yet to grasp the challenges the Ogoni communities face and the need for deliberate speed in the cleanup process, to protect the environment and rural livelihoods of the people.”

The ERA/FoEN boss further mourned that Ogoni, with Ogale as one of its documented impacted communities, is not getting relief, but more at the receiving end of polluted soils, blackened waters, contaminated boreholes and smelling mangroves because of bottlenecks and meaningless bureaucracies by government and Shell.

The groups called for transparency and accountability, as it expressed reservation that no work plan being put in place to cover the 1-5 years short term, and the long range plan for the cleanup exercise that is expected to span 25 years. They also bewailed the absence of public advertisement for contractors to enlist in the project, whilst civil society organisations, community members and other critical stakeholders have been sidelined from making the usual contributions.

Dr. Ojo also frowned that Shell’s positioning in the Governing Council of the Hydrocarbon Pollution Restoration Project (HYPREP) does contributes to the “snail speed” and piece-meal-approach by government and Shell, expressing fears that that would elongate the project beyond the specified 25 years span. He also thumped down the Remediation by Enhanced Natural Attenuation (RENA) methodology adopted by Shell for the cleanup exercise as unsafe and inappropriate, while calling for the use of any other effective technology.

Whilst calling for the cleanup to start without more delay and to serve as a prelude for cleaning up the entire oil-impacted Niger Delta region, the groups also urged the Federal Government, Shell and other transnational oil companies to establish a $100 million fund for the entire cleanup of the region.

The seven points demand made by the groups, however, are that an environmental state of emergency be declared for the Ogoni cleanup,  and the establishment of a work plan and timeline by HYPREP clean up, with all-inclusive process that should accommodate inputs from critical stakeholders. Other demands include the funding and inclusion of the National Oil Spills Detection and Remediation Agency ((NOSDRA) and other agencies for effective monitoring of the cleanup; and conduction of environmental and social audit of the Niger Delta.

The groups also called for the immediate removal of Shell from the board, adding that it (Shell) does not use the orchestrated cleanup process as a guise to re-entering Ogoni and to “decommission” its old oil pipes responsible for frequent spills.

By Tony Erha

Two landlocked countries, the Republic of the Sudan and the Republic of Zimbabwe, on Wednesday, August 2 and Monday, August 7, 2017 respectively deposited their instruments of ratification of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

The northeastern and southern African nations thus become the158th and 159th countries to endorse the global treaty, after the Republic of Haiti, which ratified the climate accord on Monday, July 31, 2017.

According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), while Sudan’s ratification of the pact will enter into force in a month’s time on Friday, September 1, 2017, Zimbabwe’s ratification will enter into force on Wednesday, September 6, 2017.

Previously, the Netherlands, Venezuela and Serbia ratified the pact respectively on Friday, July 28, Friday, July 21 and Tuesday, July 25, 2017.

Before then, the Republic of Malawi on Thursday, June 29, 2017 likewise endorsed the agreement, ahead of Egypt and Togo, which ratified the climate accord respectively on Thursday, June 29 and Wednesday, June 28 2017.

The Paris Agreement builds upon the Convention (UNFCCC) and – for the first time – brings all nations into a common cause to undertake ambitious efforts to combat climate change and adapt to its effects, with enhanced support to assist developing countries to do so. As such, it charts a new course in the global climate effort.

The Paris Agreement’s central aim is to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Additionally, the agreement aims to strengthen the ability of countries to deal with the impacts of climate change. To reach these ambitious goals, appropriate financial flows, a new technology framework and an enhanced capacity building framework will be put in place, thus supporting action by developing countries and the most vulnerable countries, in line with their own national objectives. The Agreement also provides for enhanced transparency of action and support through a more robust transparency framework.

The US is experiencing rapid climate change, 13 government agencies say in an unreleased report obtained by The New York Times. The report finds with “high confidence” that temperatures have spiked since 1980 and that “how much more the climate will change depends on future emissions and the sensitivity of the climate system to those emissions.”

The 13 agencies’ findings contradict the Trump administration’s climate stance. Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency chief, Scott Pruitt, has stated he does not believe carbon emissions are a primary cause of climate change. Scientists behind the report told the Times that they worried the Trump administration would attempt to suppress the document.

The average temperature in the United States has risen rapidly and drastically since 1980, and recent decades have been the warmest of the past 1,500 years, according to a sweeping federal climate change report awaiting approval by the Trump administration.

The draft report by scientists from 13 federal agencies, which has not yet been made public, concludes that Americans are feeling the effects of climate change right now. It directly contradicts claims by President Trump and members of his cabinet who say that the human contribution to climate change is uncertain, and that the ability to predict the effects is limited.

“Evidence for a changing climate abounds, from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans,” a draft of the report states. A copy of it was obtained by The New York Times.

The authors note that thousands of studies, conducted by tens of thousands of scientists, have documented climate changes on land and in the air. “Many lines of evidence demonstrate that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse (heat-trapping) gases, are primarily responsible for recent observed climate change,” they wrote.

The report was completed this year and is a special science section of the National Climate Assessment, which is congressionally mandated every four years. The National Academy of Sciences has signed off on the draft report, and the authors are awaiting permission from the Trump administration to release it.

One government scientist who worked on the report, Katharine Hayhoe, a professor of political science at Texas Tech University, called the conclusions among “the most comprehensive climate science reports” to be published. Another scientist involved in the process, who spoke to The New York Times on the condition of anonymity, said he and others were concerned that it would be suppressed.

The White House and the Environmental Protection Agency did not immediately return calls or respond to emails requesting comment on Monday night.

The report concludes that even if humans immediately stopped emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the world would still feel at least an additional 0.50 degrees Fahrenheit (0.30 degrees Celsius) of warming over this century compared with today. The projected actual rise, scientists say, will be as much as 2 degrees Celsius.

A small difference in global temperatures can make a big difference in the climate: The difference between a rise in global temperatures of 1.5 degrees Celsius and one of 2 degrees Celsius, for example, could mean longer heat waves, more intense rainstorms and the faster disintegration of coral reefs.

Among the more significant of the study’s findings is that it is possible to attribute some extreme weather to climate change. The field known as “attribution science” has advanced rapidly in response to increasing risks from climate change.

The E.P.A. is one of 13 agencies that must approve the report by Aug. 18. The agency’s administrator, Scott Pruitt, has said he does not believe that carbon dioxide is a primary contributor to global warming.

“It’s a fraught situation,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geoscience and international affairs at Princeton University who was not involved in the study. “This is the first case in which an analysis of climate change of this scope has come up in the Trump administration, and scientists will be watching very carefully to see how they handle it.”

Scientists say they fear that the Trump administration could change or suppress the report. But those who challenge scientific data on human-caused climate change say they are equally worried that the draft report, as well as the larger National Climate Assessment, will be publicly released.

The National Climate Assessment “seems to be on autopilot” because of a lack of political direction, said Myron Ebell, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

The report says significant advances have been made linking human influence to individual extreme weather events since the last National Climate Assessment was produced in 2014. Still, it notes, crucial uncertainties remain.

It cites the European heat wave of 2003 and the record heat in Australia in 2013 as specific episodes where “relatively strong evidence” showed that a man-made factor contributed to the extreme weather.

In the United States, the authors write, the heat wave that broiled Texas in 2011 was more complicated. That year was Texas’ driest on record, and one study cited in the report said local weather variability and La Niña were the primary causes, with a “relatively small” warming contribution. Another study had concluded that climate change made extreme events 20 times more likely in Texas.

Based on those and other conflicting studies, the federal draft concludes that there was a medium likelihood that climate change played a role in the Texas heat wave. But it avoids assessing other individual weather events for their link to climate change. Generally, the report described linking recent major droughts in the United States to human activity as “complicated,” saying that while many droughts have been long and severe, they have not been unprecedented in the earth’s hydrologic natural variation.

Worldwide, the draft report finds it “extremely likely” that more than half of the global mean temperature increase since 1951 can be linked to human influence.

In the United States, the report concludes with “very high” confidence that the number and severity of cool nights have decreased since the 1960s, while the frequency and severity of warm days have increased. Extreme cold waves, it says, are less common since the 1980s, while extreme heat waves are more common.

The study examines every corner of the United States and finds that all of it was touched by climate change. The average annual temperature in the United States will continue to rise, the authors write, making recent record-setting years “relatively common” in the near future. It projects increases of 5.0 to 7.5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.8 to 4.8 degrees Celsius) by the late century, depending on the level of future emissions.

It says the average annual rainfall across the country has increased by about 4 percent since the beginning of the 20th century. Parts of the West, Southwest and Southeast are drying up, while the Southern Plains and the Midwest are getting wetter.

With a medium degree of confidence, the authors linked the contribution of human-caused warming to rising temperatures over the Western and Northern United States. It found no direct link in the Southeast.

Additionally, the government scientists wrote that surface, air and ground temperatures in Alaska and the Arctic are rising at a frighteningly fast rate – twice as fast as the global average.

“It is very likely that the accelerated rate of Arctic warming will have a significant consequence for the United States due to accelerating land and sea ice melting that is driving changes in the ocean including sea level rise threatening our coastal communities,” the report says.

Human activity, the report goes on to say, is a primary culprit.

The study does not make policy recommendations, but it notes that stabilising the global mean temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius – what scientists have referred to as the guardrail beyond which changes become catastrophic — will require significant reductions in global levels of carbon dioxide.

Nearly 200 nations agreed as part of the Paris accords to limit or cut fossil fuel emissions. If countries make good on those promises, the federal report says, that will be a key step toward keeping global warming at manageable levels.

Mr. Trump announced this year that the United States would withdraw from the Paris agreement, saying the deal was bad for America.

Governments of the Syrian Arab Republic and the Republic of Kiribati on Wednesday, July 26 and Friday, July 28, 2017 respectively deposited their instruments of ratification, thereby becoming the 72nd and 73rd future Parties to the Minamata Convention.

Prior to this, the Government of Jamaica on Wednesday, July 19, 2017 deposited its instrument of ratification to become the 71st future Party to the mercury convention.

Hitherto, the Governments of Rwanda, Palau, Thailand, Slovenia and Viet Nam deposited their instruments of ratification, thereby becoming the 66th to 70th future Parties to the mercury treaty.

The depositions were made on Wednesday, June 21; Thursday, June 22; Friday, June 23; and Thursday, June 29, 2017. While Palau deposited on Wednesday and Thailand on Thursday, both Slovenia and Viet Nam did likewise on Friday. Rwanda followed up a week later on Thursday.

Previously, Iran and Estonia had ratified the Convention, which has already entered into force, thanks to the landmark rash of ratifications on Thursday, May 18, 2017 that triggered the entry into force of the mercury accord, having garnered the required 50 ratifications.

On that day, the EU and seven of its member States – Bulgaria, Denmark, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands, Romania and Sweden – deposited their instruments of ratification at the UN Headquarters in New York, bringing to 51 that day the number of future Parties.

As a result, on August 16 2017, the Convention, which aims at protecting human health and the environment from anthropogenic emissions and releases of mercury and mercury compounds, will become legally binding for all its Parties.

To commemorate the historic development, United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), Ministry of the Environment of Japan, Kumamoto Prefecture and Minamata City on Saturday, July 1, 2017 held “Celebrating Event for the Minamata Convention on Mercury – Voice from Minamata towards the Entry into Force” in Minamata City, Kumamoto, Japan.

The 1st Conference of the Parties to the Minamata Convention (COP1) will gather governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations from around the world in Geneva from September 24 to 29, 2017.

The Minamata Convention on Mercury (“Minamata Convention”) is a new international environmental convention for global community to work collaboratively against mercury pollution. The Minamata Convention aims at achieving environmentally sound mercury management throughout its life cycle. The Convention was adopted at the diplomatic conferences held in Minamata City and Kumamoto City in October 2013.