The Green Climate Fund (GCF) has adopted a landmark policy on REDD+ results-based payments, a major boon for forest finance. The decision was made at the 40th meeting of the GCF Board.
GCF Executive Director, Mafalda Duarte
REDD+ (Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation) is based on the principle that developing countries which reduce their emissions from deforestation and forest degradation can receive financial compensation, known as results-based payments. This is a highly efficient way of financing emissions reductions, as payment is made for verified emissions reductions.
In addition, REDD+ results-based payments deliver a wide range of adaptation and other benefits, including supporting forest-related livelihoods, biodiversity and other ecological services.
Why is the REDD+ results-based payments policy important?
The policy permanently integrates REDD+ results-based payments into GCF’s regular project activity cycle. This will significantly enhance the predictability of REDD+ financing, providing a powerful incentive for developing countries to embark on REDD+ and reduce their emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.
The price of $8 per tonne – a 60 per cent increase on previous REDD+ results-based payments provided by GCF – reflects the strong environmental integrity of eligible results and is a nod to forests’ immense contribution to climate change mitigation and adaptation. With many countries immediately eligible, GCF expects results-based payments to flow in the hundreds of millions to countries from all regions and all categories, including Small Island Developing States and Least Developed Countries, under the current GCF programming cycle alone (2024-2027).
Mainstreaming results-based payments into GCF programming will ensure they are fully consistent and compliant with all GCF policies, including the Gender Policy, Indigenous Peoples’ Policy, and environmental and social safeguards – in addition to the Cancún Safeguards already agreed under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The policy also complements GCF’s newly revamped Readiness Programme, which will enable countries to top up their existing REDD+ Readiness efforts and swiftly become eligible for results-based payments under the new policy.
This year’s focus, climate finance, underscores the urgency of delivering funding at a scale and ambition sufficient to confront the climate crisis and help with a fast and fair energy transition in the Global South. Yet, if governments’ failure to address the key driver of the crisis — fossil fuel production and use — persists, even the most ambitious finance measures will fall short.
No climate finance would be enough without a full, fast, and fair phase-out of fossil fuels. Despite decades of discussions and the largely absent mention of fossil fuels, governments are way off track on their commitments to keep global warming below the 1.5°C limit and to avert the most catastrophic impacts on human rights.
As world leaders convene in Baku, they face a pivotal moment: COP29 is expected to reach an agreement on carbon markets — a dangerous distraction allowing countries to trade greenhouse gas emissions “credits” rather than reduce emissions to help achieve climate goals — and to signal how they will strengthen their national climate plans (NDCs) due in early 2025 (hint: committing to an urgent, full, and timebound fossil fuel phaseout, without loopholes or limitations, is key).
Delivering on Climate Finance
Dubbed the “Finance COP,” COP29 will focus heavily on adopting a new climate finance target, marking the first time in 15 years that countries will reevaluate the amount and type of finance developing countries receive to pay for climate action since the $100 billion annual target was set in 2009. This is a target that the world’s developed and wealthiest nations have consistently failed to meet, as the $100 billion by 2020 goal was reached two years too late, breaking trust with developing countries and those most vulnerable to climate change and hampering global climate progress.
After years of unmet commitments and, more recently, technical dialogues about both the quantity and quality of the finance, countries will commit to a new collective quantified goal (NCQG) on climate finance — a chance to commit to climate finance that matches the scale of today’s crises. The NCQG is not intended to solve all climate finance issues, but it is a crucial piece of the puzzle.
The financial goal is not symbolic or optional: setting and delivering it is a legal obligation
The finance goal is not merely symbolic. Committing to and actually providing adequate and necessary funding is critical and essential to helping countries vulnerable to climate change pursue clean energy and other low-carbon solutions, build climate resilience, and fulfill or strengthen their national climate pledges. Countries in vulnerable regions need reliable resources to transition fairly, adopt clean energy, and prepare for worsening climate impacts.
The magnitude, form, and source of the financing
In Baku, negotiators and political leaders face key decisions, including the ultimate NCQG top-line dollar figure — in billions or trillions — and whether separate targets will be established for mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage. Other key considerations include which countries will be included as those who provide finance under this goal, whether certain financial instruments (such as grants or concessional loans) will be favoured, and how they will ensure transparency.
Climate finance must encompass money for mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage
In addition to finance for mitigation and adaptation, wealthy nations have an obligation to provide climate finance to developing countries for loss and damage rather than continuing their years of delay and obstruction to avoid remedying the harms they have caused.
It’s past time for empty promises and failing to deliver. We need real finance, and we need it now.
Carbon Markets Are Not Climate Finance
With increased attention to the massive funding gap for climate mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage, growing numbers of carbon market proponents are fashioning carbon trading as climate finance. But purchasing carbon credits to obtain a free pass to continue polluting, chiefly through fossil fuel production and use, cannot be considered true climate finance. Carbon offsets that allow polluters to buy emissions reductions from other countries instead of reducing their own emissions do not enhance overall levels of climate mitigation or adaptation — which is the very defining feature of climate finance. They must not be used as an escape hatch or excuse for developed countries to avoid their legal obligations to provide financing for mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage, particularly in the Global South.
Wealthy countries that bear the greatest cumulative responsibility for the climate crisis are overdue on their payment of predictable, new, and additional grants-based climate finance, and they must agree to put real money on the table — not hide behind dangerous schemes like carbon markets and offsets that may be generated from illusory technologies for CO2 “removal” and geoengineering. These carbon markets primarily serve to delay effective climate action and bring risks to peoples and the environment.
Global South countries and communities on the front line of the climate crisis need real climate finance and should not be forced to accept carbon markets and the pressure to generate offsets to allow Global North polluters to continue business as usual because Global North countries continue to fail to live up to their obligations. Only offering a form of financing that ultimately undermines ambition and global climate action and likely increases the cost of mitigation measures Global South countries will have to take now and in the future to meet their climate goals is not in line with climate justice.
One of the thorniest issues at COP29
Article 6 of the Paris Agreement allows countries to trade carbon credits toward achieving their national climate goals. For example, a country rich in tropical rainforests could sell credits calculated on the basis of deforestation avoided or CO2 absorbed by forests to generate funds for forest protection (carbon offsets). However, that country wouldn’t get to count those emissions reductions or removals toward their own climate mitigation targets; instead, the countries purchasing the credits would count the resulting emissions reductions or removals toward their own national climate targets.
It’s fundamentally flawed — these Global South credit-generating countries are effectively trading away the cheapest climate action. Rules for these carbon markets have been on the agenda of the climate talks for years, and while a basic rubric was adopted at COP26, fully operationalising the carbon markets has lagged behind many of the other rules for implementing the Paris Agreement. And they have to be ironed out before trading can begin.
Many carbon market mechanisms create loopholes for polluters while posing significant risks to human rights, the rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the environment. They also serve as a dangerous distraction from the real climate action that is needed. The fundamental flaws make it all the more critical that, if markets are to be used, the right rules for trading carbon credits are agreed to before any activity takes place. It is exceedingly important to minimise the environmental damage of international carbon markets and mitigate the risk as they undermine global emission cuts or impact the rights and livelihoods of communities worldwide.
Since failing to reach a full agreement on the Article 6 rules at COP28, Parties have tried to find common ground. Notably, the Supervisory Body for the newly named Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism (PACM), which involves carbon crediting between countries and various other entities, has reached conclusions on a flawed grievance mechanism and a Sustainable Development Tool.
The Supervisory Body has also tried again to reach an agreement on two standards (methodology requirements and activities involving removals) that provide the technical underpinnings for carbon crediting and that have not been accepted by the Parties in their previous iterations at COP27 and COP28 Concerningly, this time, the Supervisory Body has taken a different approach.
Rather than presenting the recommendations to the COP as in years past, the Supervisory Body claims these standards are fully operational and just need to be noted by the Parties in Baku. This attempt to circumvent oversight could set a dangerous precedent and it undermines the integrity of the PACM from the beginning.
Rather than focusing on this false solution to fossil fuel phaseout and finance, Parties should step up and take the climate action needed and put real money on the table to support the ambition required to tackle the climate crisis.
A strong financial outcome without loopholes in Baku will help ensure that all countries have the resources they need to pursue a just transition to a climate-safe, fossil-free future centered on human rights and on the needs and demands of the poorest countries in the most vulnerable contexts.
At a moment when countries are reevaluating their climate commitments, COP29 also offers a chance for major emitting nations to demonstrate stronger leadership, putting forward more ambitious climate plans and recommitting to deliver on these.
A Finance COP will be meaningless if leaders fail to take clear, actionable steps to commit to real finance and to end all fossil fuels, fast, fairly, and forever.
By Erika Lennon, Senior Attorney for the Climate and Energy Programme at the Centre for International Environmental Law, and Rossella Recupero, Communications Campaign Specialist at the Centre for International Environmental Law
The Renevlyn Development Initiative (RDI) has called on the Taraba and Adamawa State Governments to investigate a mining pit incident at an illegal mining site located within a national game reserve spanning Gashaka Local Government Area in Taraba State and Toungo Local Government Area in Adamawa State which led to 22 deaths.
Dr Dele Alake, Minister of Solid Minerals Development
It was learnt that the dead who were mainly young people were mining gold in an area known as the Buffa zone within the Gashaka-Gumti National Park, covering parts of both Gashaka and Toungo. All the 22 miners trapped in the pit are presumed dead.
The incident, involving miners from various parts of Nigeria, including Zamfara and Adamawa, comes barely three months after a similar incident in Shiroro, Niger State, which also killed dozens. Some trapped victims were reportedly abandoned by the state government for weeks until the outcry of the natives forced the authorities to scramble to recover the dead bodies.
In relation to the current incident, RDI Executive Director, Philip Jakpor, said: The mine collapse incident and needless deaths in the national game reserve area spanning Gashaka and Toungo LGAs in Taraba and Adamawa states respectively is one incident too many. A few months ago, it was Shiroro in Niger State.
“We have said it time and again that proper oversight functions in communities where solid minerals are extracted is practically nil. Unregulated mining perpetrated by foreign nationals, especially the Chinese and their local collaborators, is responsible for a growing number of deaths of school age children. It is unacceptable. We call on the government to investigate this incident and bring the operators of the illegal mines to book.”
Jakpor warned that the failure of government to stem the growing illegal solid minerals mining operations across the country would create situations similar to the oil belt of the Niger Delta where oil has become a curse instead of a blessing to the locals.
“We find it disturbing that at a time that the global community is strategising for host communities on the issues of governance and benefit sharing, local communities in Nigeria where solid minerals including transition minerals are mined are now becoming victims of the unregulated activities of illegal and artisan miners. This is unacceptable,” Jakpor stated.
Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), courtesy of a recently convened webinar titled “The Emission Gaps and the Road to COP 29”, brought together environmental experts, activists, and public interest lawyers to discuss urgent issues surrounding global climate policy, emissions reduction, and the upcoming COP29.
COP29 hold in Baku, Azerbaijan November 2024
Speakers reviewed the evolution of COP conferences and pointed to critical milestones, such as the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 and the Paris Agreement of 2015.
They noted, however, that COP’s current voluntary emission targets – known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) – fall short, pushing the world dangerously close to catastrophic temperature increases. Participants critiqued COP’s structure, which continues to benefit wealthy nations and the private sector at the expense of vulnerable communities.
Ruth Nyambura, an African ecofeminist with Ramani Collective, argued that the emissions gap reflects more than just figures; it represents ongoing injustices – wars, inequality, and human rights abuses. She highlighted how the fossil fuel industry and military-industrial complex drive environmental devastation and land dispossession, especially across African nations and the broader Global South.
“For participatory frameworks to ensure these funds serve communities genuinely impacted by climate change and avoiding absorption by elites or corrupt governments. A decentralised approach to climate policy would better meet the real needs of frontline communities.”
Nyambura called for a reevaluation of COP data and narratives to dismantle rather than reinforce colonial power structures while highlighting the limitations of current multilateral structures, prioritising powerful nations and sidelining local voices.
Fadhel Kaboub, an associate professor of economics at Denison University and Senior Advisor with PowerShift Africa, noted that global warming targets would be impossible to achieve under current fossil fuel extraction rates, leaving Africa’s renewable potential largely untapped due to a lack of financing and technology transfer.
Kaboub advocated for climate reparations, structured as grants rather than loans, to address the historical carbon debt owed by industrialised countries.
“These reparations would finance Africa’s self-sufficiency through renewable energy and food sovereignty initiatives. As COP29 approaches, we must center the voices of those most affected by climate injustice, especially in the Global South. African leaders must stand against further fossil fuel exploitation and demand policies that truly transform our continent,” said Kaboub.
Thuli Makama, a public interest attorney and Africa Senior Advisor at Oil Change International, emphasised that the “pipeline of resistance” needed to counter false narratives around climate action that profit corporations while harming vulnerable communities.
Makama encouraged civil society to resist co-optation by COP processes and instead invest in counter-COP forums, which allow for open discussion on the root causes of climate change.
“COP 29 should focus on accountability. The calls include climate finance, technology transfer, and addressing loss and damage – a COP where fossil fuel interests do not dominate and where the voices of impacted communities are prioritised. African leaders should reject fossil fuel expansion and promote biodiversity protection and renewable energy solutions aligned with Africa’s sustainable development,” added Makama.
HOMEF’s Director, Nnimmo Bassey, emphasised that fossil fuel interests remain heavily represented within COP, creating a shield from accountability despite their contribution to the climate crisis.
“The COP process has prioritised market-based solutions that do not address the systemic causes of emissions, such as extractive capitalism and entrenched global power structures. Instead of driving meaningful climate action, these ‘solutions’ are deepening the crisis,” said Bassey.
The dialogue, led by Bassey, called for radical reforms to address COP’s historic failings and the inequalities that persist in climate negotiations.
Panelists agreed on the need for a global resistance movement to unite feminists, labour unions, indigenous communities, and environmental activists to challenge structures perpetuating climate injustice.
In October 2024, as has been tradition since 1985, the global community united in a vigorous campaign aimed at eradicating breast cancer. The month-long initiative, known as “Pink October,” seeks to raise awareness and reduce stigma surrounding breast cancer symptoms and treatment.
Mrs. Dorothy Anim sensitising members of the Women in Forestry on gynaecological cancers
Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer among women globally and led to over 670,000 deaths in 2022, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
In solidarity with this year’s Pink October, members of the Ghanaian “Women in Forestry” group dedicated their final meeting of the year to discussions beyond professional development, focusing on cancers that affect women. The aim was to promote general health and well-being among the group’s members, who include professional foresters, forest governance advocates, legal experts on natural resources, and media practitioners reporting on forestry issues.
At their meeting on Wednesday, October 23, 2024, in Kumasi, members received an overview of gynecologic cancers, cancers affecting a woman’s reproductive organs. This includes cervical, ovarian, uterine (or endometrial), fallopian tube, vaginal, and vulvar cancers, which contribute to nearly 40% of all cancer cases and account for 30% of cancer-related deaths among women worldwide, according to GLOBOCAN.
Presenting on these cancers, Mrs. Dorothy Anim, an oncology nurse from the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi, noted that “Cervical cancer is the most common, representing approximately 57.8% of all gynecologic cancers. It is the fourth leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women, claiming about 342,000 lives globally each year.” She highlighted that Ghana has one of the highest incidences of cervical cancer globally.
Mrs. Anim explained that risk factors for gynecologic cancers include family history, obesity, hormone replacement therapy, HIV, smoking, alcohol use, and having multiple sexual partners. Common signs and symptoms include post-menopausal bleeding, irregular bleeding before menopause, abnormal vaginal discharge, abdominal bloating, and changes in skin colour.
Concluding her presentation, Mrs. Anim emphasised that prevention and successful treatment of gynecologic cancers are possible, particularly with awareness of risk factors, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and avoiding smoking, alcohol, and unsafe sexual practices. Regular screenings and awareness of symptoms are also key to early detection and improved outcomes.
This year’s Pink October theme, “No One Should Face Breast Cancer Alone,” underscored the importance of early detection, timely diagnosis, comprehensive treatment, and support for those affected by breast cancer. In Ghana, over 4,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer annually, with half succumbing to the disease. Studies show that Ghanaian women often receive a diagnosis at advanced stages, increasing mortality risks. Additionally, research indicates that Black women are more likely to die from breast cancer at every age.
The observance of Pink October in Ghana this year also underscored the need for intensified awareness nationwide and across Africa, especially regarding breast and other cancers affecting women.
In addition to the health discussions, the Women in Forestry members were briefed on the Affirmative Action (Gender Equality) Act of 2024. This Act seeks to increase women’s participation in public life, setting a minimum of 30% representation with a target of 50% by 2030.
Ann-Marie Palmer-Burkle from TaylorCrabbe Legal Firm discussed the establishment of a Gender Equality Committee under the Act. This committee will work with independent bodies, including the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, National Commission for Civic Education, National Media Commission, and the Electoral Commission, to ensure adherence to gender equality principles.
During an open discussion, members welcomed the Affirmative Action Act as a significant advancement for gender equality in Ghana, expressing optimism that the Gender Equality Committee will effectively fulfill its mandate.
Stakeholders at the Pan-African Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Forum 2024 have pledged commitment to carbon emission reduction through sustainable business practices.
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State
They made the pledge at the 2024 ESG Forum held in Lagos.
The forum had the theme: “The Carbon Market: Driving Investments for a Sustainable Africa”.
Speaking at the forum, the Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, assured of the state’s committed to environmental sustainability through its waste to energy programmes.
The governor was represented by Dr Oreoluwa Finnih-Awokoya, his Special Assistant on SDGs.
“This addresses waste management challenges while also reducing our carbon footprints,” Sanwo-Olu said.
He said the state had created a carbon registry designed to encourage transparency and managing carbon credits and footprint.
He added that the registry would support businesses and help in carbon reduction.
“We are also investing heavily in health care and education.
“Additionally, job creation and transportation is another critical aspect of our ESG journey which we are tactically working to enhance our transport systems.
In his remarks, Mr Yarub Al-Bahrani, the Managing Director BAT West and Central Africa, said the theme highlights the goal to harness the carbon market as a transformative tool for sustainable development in Africa, building on the success of the 2023 forum.
Al-Bahrani noted that Africa faces both opportunities and environmental challenges in the transition to a low-carbon economy.
He said the forum serves as a platform to explore how carbon credits, emission reduction strategies, and innovative financing models would drive sustainable growth.
Al-Bahrani stressed the importance of the private sector in addressing climate challenges and creating economic opportunities that benefit communities and promote clean technologies.
Dr Innocent Barikor, the Director-General of the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA), noted that President Bola Tinubu’s economic reform agenda focuses on inclusive growth, energy resource development and infrastructural development.
Barikor said that Nigeria should strengthen private sector development to kickstart renewable energy, drive reforestation and engage in sustainable agriculture through carbon market.
“With these alignments, Nigeria is poised to lead by example and these initiatives will not only reduce emission but generate jobs.
“NESREA can play a critical role by supporting carbon market development by leveraging her data requirements on industrial carbon output,” Barikor said.
The event was attended by captains of industry across Africa.
This year is “virtually certain” to eclipse 2023 as the world’s warmest since records began, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said on Thursday, November 7, 2024.
European Commission. Photo credit: Mark Renders/Getty Images
The data was released ahead of next week’s UN COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, where countries will try to agree on a huge increase in funding to tackle climate change.
Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election has dampened expectations for the talks.
C3S said that from January to October, the average global temperature had been so high that 2024 was sure to be the world’s hottest year – unless the temperature anomaly in the rest of the year plunged to near-zero.
“The fundamental, underpinning cause of this year’s record is climate change,” C3S Director Carlo Buontempo told Reuters.
“The climate is warming, generally.
“It’s warming in all continents, in all ocean basins. So we are bound to see those records being broken,” he said.
The scientists said 2024 will also be the first year in which the planet is more than 1.5C hotter than in the 1850-1900 pre-industrial period when humans began burning fossil fuels on an industrial scale.
Carbon dioxide emissions from burning coal, oil, and gas are the main cause of global warming.
Sonia Seneviratne, a climate scientist at public research university ETH Zurich, said she was not surprised by the milestone.
She urged governments at COP29 to agree stronger action to wean their economies off CO2-emitting fossil fuels.
“The limits that were set in the Paris Agreement are starting to crumble given the too-slow pace of climate action across the world,” Seneviratne said.
Countries agreed in the 2015 Paris Agreement to try to prevent global warming surpassing 1.5C (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), to avoid its worst consequences.
The world has not breached that target – which refers to an average global temperature of 1.5C over decades – but C3S now expects the world to exceed the Paris goal around 2030.
“It’s basically around the corner now,” Buontempo said.
Every fraction of temperature increase fuels extreme weather.
In October, catastrophic flash floods killed hundreds of people in Spain, record wildfires tore through Peru, and flooding in Bangladesh destroyed more than one million tons of rice, sending food prices skyrocketing.
In the U.S., Hurricane Milton was also worsened by human-caused climate change.
C3S’ records go back to 1940, which are cross-checked with global temperature records going back to 1850.
The Nigeria Association of Hydrological Sciences (NAHS) has sought for more collaboration with the Federal Government in tackling flood and drought in order to boost food production in the country.
A flooded are on Maiduguri
Prof. Philip Oguntade, a guest speaker, made this appeal at the 14th Annual Conference and Annual General Meeting of NAHS held on Thursday, November 7, 2024, at the Olusegun Agagu University of Science and Technology (OAUSTECH), Okitipupa, Ondo State.
Theme of the conference is: “Managing Floods and Droughts for Food Security.”
Oguntade, a professor of Environmental Hydrology and Water Engineering, said that the disaster caused by floods and droughts to agriculture and food production was enormous with it’s harrowing effect of food shortages.
Oguntade, a former Vice-Chancellor, Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), said that NAHS has experts from diverse fields who are capable to give technical solution to flooding and droughts, saying the association only needed robust partnership with government to foster.
According to the don, globally, foods hazards have led to crop damages and loss of livestock especially in the low-income countries with about 63 percent of damages and loses between 2008 and 2018.
“In Nigeria, flood is fast becoming a yearly event and despite all historical negative impacts on agricultural production and potential future increases, there seems to be a wide gap in understanding of the potential impacts of extreme floods events on agriculture, lands and crops.
“Most of the time, we only react to the situation when incident and damages occur, we should be more proactive, let there be a ‘think tank’ of experts that will predict the future and know what to do to arrest the situation before damages occur.
“NAHS is a Non Government Organisation (NGO) who can do less, but government are suited to collaborate and harness experts from this association, who will give scientific and technical advice to tackle flooding and droughts in the country,” Oguntade said.
Similarly, David Jimoh, a professor of Water Engineering, Federal University of Technology, Minna, said that flood and droughts are two climate extremes affecting availability and accessibility of foods as well as utilisation and stability.
Jimoh, the National President of NAHS, added that Nigeria was experiencing the extremes with negative impacts on the welfare of millions of people, adding that in 2023 alone, devastating floods affected 159,157 individuals, caused lost of 25 lives and displaced 48,168 with economic damage of about $9 billion.
According to him, unfortunately, research in Africa, and Nigeria inclusive, is relatively low, less than one percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is committed to research.
“Government must strive for more funding of research and engage more experts in order to forestall the great damages and effects of flooding and droughts on agriculture and food production.
“NAHS have lots of experts from different fields of Agric Engineering, Water Engineering, Biology, Geology, Geography, Applied Sciences among others who can offer their expertise to government agencies to give scientific and technical advise to forestall future floods and droughts damages,” Jimoh added
Earlier, Prof. Temi Ologunorisa, Vice-Chancellor, OAUSTECH, while welcoming the experts to the annual conference, described it as a good development for the institution, state and country at large.
Ologunorisa, who was represented by Prof. David Aworinde, the Deputy Vice Chancellor, OAUSTECH, also added that the coming together of the revered experts would bring about possible solutions for major floods and droughts challenges bedevilling the country.
The conference was attended by experts, scholars, educationists and others from different walks of life.
The Defence Headquarters (DHQ) says the troops of Operation Delta Safe destroyed 216 illegal refining sites across the Niger Delta region in October 2024.
Illegal crude oil refining in the Niger Delta region
The Director of Defence Media Operations, Maj.-Gen. Edward Buba, made this known while briefing newsmen on the operations of the military on Thursday, November 7, in Abuja.
Buba said the troops also destroyed 195 wooden boats as well as recovered 30 vehicles and 429 assorted ammunition during the period.
He said that the troops also impounded 3.2 million litres of crude oil, 763,860 litres of Automated Gas Oil (AGO) and 12,690 litres of Premium Motor Spirits (PMS).
According to him, troops operations have progressively increased the nation’s daily crude oil production to over 1.5 million barrels per day.
“During October, troops arrested 126 persons involved in crude oil theft and recovered 429 assorted ammunition,” he said.
Buba said the troops of Operation UDO KA in the South East, conducted offensive operations against IPOB/ESN terror group in several states killing 40 terrorists, apprehended 55 suspects and rescuing 35 kidnapped hostages.
According to him, IPOB/ESN incidents were recorded in Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Imo and Enugu States.
“Troops recovered 21 AK47 rifles, 24 pump action guns, 19 assorted arms, 177 live cartridges and 191 assorted ammunitions,” he added.
The Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency (LASEPA), on Wednesday, November 6, 2024, said it had sealed off some churches alongside recreational centres over noise pollution in the state.
LASEPA officials sealing off a church in Lagos
LASEPA made this known through a statement on its X handle.
“In a bid to address noise pollution and other environmental violations, LASEPA took action, closing down several establishments across different parts of the state.
“This enforcement drive, focusing on areas like Ogudu, Gbagada, Iyana Ejigbo, Isolo, Ajao Estate, Oshodi, Ilasamaja, and Okota, is part of LASEPA’s continuous efforts to uphold environmental standards and safeguard public health.
“The affected establishments include Honourable Lounge & Lodging, Redeemed Christian Church of God, Celestial Church of God, OMA Night Club and Lounge, Bridge Spot Bar.
“Others are Okiki Event Centre and Hall, Emota Paradise Hotel (Phase 2), CF Hotel & Suites, House 27 Hotel & Suites, Echo Spring Hotel, and Smile T Continental Hotel,” the statement read.
The statement added that the establishments were found guilty of breaching environmental regulations despite multiple warnings from LASEPA.
The statement reiterated the agency’s zero-tolerance policy on regulatory non-compliance, adding that the agency would not permit disregard for regulations.
The statement urged all businesses to recognise the environmental obligations and work alongside the state government to foster a cleaner, more sustainable Lagos.
