The leadership of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has reaffirmed the group’s commitment to tackling global climate change through the historic Paris Climate Change Agreement. OPEC Secretary General, Mohammad Barkindo, who is a Nigerian, spoke at the International Petroleum Week on Tuesday, February 21 2017 in London, the United Kingdom.
Secretary General of OPEC, Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo
He said: “Let me stress that OPEC not only welcomed the Paris Agreement on climate change from COP21 and its early enforcement toward the end of 2016. Our Member Countries played an important role in reaching the Agreement – and they will also play a role in its implementation. All 13 OPEC Member Countries have signed the Agreement and all are in the process of ratifying it.
“The Paris Climate Change Agreement, which entered into force last year, is designed to put the world on a firm path towards low carbon and greater resilience to climate change. 131 Parties (130 governments and the European Union) have to date ratified the agreement.
In view of the increasingly obvious and accelerating impacts of climate change, including more droughts, rising sea levels and more frequent and intense floods and storms, the OPEC secretary general acknowledged that climate change has the potential to ‘impact energy demand, overall energy mix and the future economy of oil’.”
Whilst pointing out that oil will continue to play an important role in the global economy, Mohammad Barkindo said that, in terms of the energy mix, the world can expect to see a “further shift” towards renewables in the coming decades.
He added: “Let me stress that OPEC is greatly supportive of the development of renewables. Many of our countries have vast sources of solar and wind, and significant investments are being made in these field.
Reactions have trailed the three-week ultimatum given by the Cross River State Government to the Federal Government to approve an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Report submitted in respect its proposed 260-kilometre superhighway.
The absence of an approved EIA notwithstanding, bulldozers were at work months ago clearing the Superhighway’s route passing through parts of Boki in Cross River State
Cross River State officials indicated that they might be left with no choice but to go ahead with the controversial project even without the central government endorsement.
Environment watchdogs, the Green Concern for Development (GREENCODE) and Peace Point Actions (PPA), have however called on the Federal Government to ignore what they describe as “empty threat by a group of political sycophants who are looking for ways of winning Governor Ben Ayade’s heart for their personal and political reasons.”
At a recent media briefing in Calabar, the state capital, Commissioner for Information, Rosemary Archibong, said: “The Federal Government must grant approval not later than the middle of March. We want to continue with our work. In a short time, the rainy season would set in and the state is a place of torrential downpour and we cannot wait for the rainy season as all the lofty projects of benefit to Cross River and Nigeria would suffer.”
She spoke in the company of her colleagues in Lands, John Inyang; Finance, Asuquo Ekpenyong; Water Resources, Gabe Oji; and Climate Change, Alice Ekwu.
But GREENCODE and PPA commend the Federal Government “so far in listening to the plight of the citizens, by ordering Stop Work on the Superhighway project on which work had commenced without an approved EIA”.
In a statement signed by Umo Johnson (PPA) and E. Edem (GREENCODE), the groups noted:
“We recall that the Superhighway was ill-conceived as it will not be cost-effective but would plunge the state into debt, besides the loss of biodiversity and the impoverishment of the people.
“The proposed Superhighway came along with an incredible revocation of land ownership of over 180 communities, began the indiscriminate destruction of virgin forest areas, houses and farm land.
“Secondly, the going by the national laws and policy, such project should have an acceptable Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) but despite the pressure for the state to commission an all-inclusive and participatory EIA process, the state contracted a company that turned in a shameful EIA report full of ‘Cut and Paste’ perhaps from other similar reports, which clearly shows that no detailed and participatory EIA was conducted in the state, thus pointing to the fact that there is more to hide in the short and long term negative impacts of the Super Highway.
“Thirdly, as NGOs concerned about prudent management of public finance, we have faulted this project as the initial contract of bulldozing of the highway pathway from Akpabuyo to Bekwara was never made public; neither did it comply with the Cross River state Public Procurement Law 2011.
“Fourthly, the state did not consult the citizens before deciding if the road is needed or not. We note also that the state government has not publicly displayed the analysis of how the road is going to be financed. Even if it will be under the Public Private Partnership (PPA), at least the state should be able to share publicly what will be the state’s contribution and how the private investor would recoup their investment. These leave the citizens to suspect that the reasons behind bulldozing of some of the communities’ virgin forests is basically to fell trees and use the proceeds to compensate the private investors, also the revocation of lands within the 10km wide on both side of the so called Super highway from Bakassi to Bekwara was A massive land grab that would have been auctioned to the highest bidders and used in paying the part of the investment.
“Similarly, since the state has refused to open up on how the highway construction will be finance, citizens have concluded that perhaps upon completion of the road, several toll gates will be installed on the road with high toll fees, so that the investors can recoup their investment.
“The superhighway project will needlessly displace over 180 communities, destroy our natural heritage and place a generational debt burden on Cross Riverians. If the reason is truly to offer faster link from the south to north and convey goods from the so-called ‘Deep Sea Port’ in Bakassi, GREENCODE and PPA as a partner in the Cross River state project is recommending the following:
Suspend the plan for the construction of superhighway
Plan and construct a fast rail track beside existing Calabar-Ikom-Ogoja and Bekwara highway which will be useful in transporting goods and services faster than the Superhighway. The fast rail will be safer, faster and cheaper and will convey larger number number of goods, services and humans than the superhighway. Also, the pathway needed for rail track will be have less impact on the environment.
Withdraw the empty threat on Federal Government and tender apology to CrossRiverians.
Civil society and grassroots groups’ aversion to the Lagos Environment Bill when it went for Public Hearing on February 9, 2017 not withstanding, the Lagos House of Assembly on Monday, February 20 2017 passed the bill into law and, to the chagrin of the activists, then went on recess
Akinwunmi Ambode, Governor of Lagos State. Photo credit: ecomium.org
A coalition of civil society groups, grassroots campaigners and water unionists have vowed to resist the Lagos State Environment Bill which was passed on Monday, February 20 2017 by the Lagos House of Assembly, less than two weeks after the groups challenged key sections of the law at a Public Hearing organised by the House Committee on the Environment.
The groups also asked Governor Akinwunmi Ambode not to assent to the bill but, rather, send it back to the House to throw it open again for wider consultations and inputs from Lagos citizens.
The bill, which harmonises and merges eight environment laws in the state into one, is titled, “A Bill for a Law to Consolidate all Laws relating to the Environment for the Management, Protection and Sustainable Development of the Environment in Lagos State and for Connected Purposes.”
Media reports indicate that, after its passage on Monday, Speaker Mudashiru Obasa directed the Clerk of the House, Azeez Sanni, to send a clean copy to Governor Ambode for his signature to make it a law.
The House members had reportedly cut short their six weeks recess to attend to the bill and same week it took the first and second reading and held the public hearing where activists picked holes in the law. The members went on another recess after passing the law.
Activists particularly decried sections of the law that guaranteed payment for contractual services and concessions with an Irrevocable Service Payment Order (ISPO) as the first line charge on the state internally-generated revenue.
“This means if the law is assented to by Governor Ambode, the state will use tax payers money to pay the corporate entities, without fail before considering payment for other services like salaries, healthcare, education or road construction, no matter how pressing they may be,” stated Philip Jakpor of the Environmental Rights Action/Friend of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN).
According to him, “the bill also gave too much power to the Lagos Commissioner for Environment, criminalises sinking of boreholes, and imposes fines and sets prison terms for any Lagos citizen that sells or transports water, among others.”
The groups criticising the passage include: ERA/FoEN, Amalgamated Union of Public Corporations, Civil Service, Technical and Recreational Services Employees (AUPCTRE), Peace and Development Project (PEDEP), Centre for Children’s Health Education, Orientation and Protection (CEE-Hope) and Centre for Dignity and African Women Water Sanitation and Hygiene Network (AWWASHN).
ERA/FoEN’s Deputy Executive Director, Akinbode Oluwafemi, said: “We are too shocked at this clandestine passage by members of the House which was so hurriedly done that it smacks of respect for Lagos residents who are already victims of the Lagos government deliberate withholding of funding to the water sector to pave way for privatisation.
“The hasty convergence and recourse to recess by the lawmakers after passing this law is not only suspect, it is a conspiracy against the people.”
National President of AUPCTRE, Solomon Adelegan, said: “The water privatisation plans of the Lagos government which we have stood against and mobilised against till date is now being imposed on the people using the instrumentality of a law that was not properly debated, and fraught with anti-people sections.
“We will not sit back idly and watch our water infrastructure put in the hands of a few capitalists who have vowed to mortgage our collective future.”
Executive Director of PEDEP, Francis Abayomi, pointed out that Lagos residents will take to the streets and use every peaceful means to resist the environmental law, even as he demanded: “What is the logic behind members of the House passing this obnoxious law and then going on recess immediately as if they are absconding?”
Francis explained that “the environment law as currently passed would burden Lagosians and is the guise to introduce the PPP in the water sector which Lagosians have roundly rejected.’’
Executive Director of CEE-HOPE, Betty Abah, said: “It is disheartening to know that a law concocted by a few capitalists could be so easily passed within two weeks of a Public Hearing. Incredible! We will resist it.”
The group said it had already recommended the solution to the challenges to accessing water in Lagos in a document titled: “Lagos Water Crisis: Alternative Roadmap for the Water Sector” launched October 2016.
Tiny plastic particles washed off products such as synthetic clothes and car tyres could contribute up to 30% of the “plastic soup” polluting the world’s oceans and – in many developed countries – are a bigger source of marine plastic pollution than plastic waste, according to a new report by International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Ocean pollution (or marine litter) courtesy of plastics and plastic particles
The report looked at primary microplastics – plastics that enter the oceans in the form of small particles, as opposed to larger plastic waste that degrades in the water – released from household and industrial products across seven geographical regions. Sources of primary microplastics include car tyres, synthetic textiles, marine coatings, road markings, personal care products, plastic pellets and city dust.
According to the report, between 15 and 31% of the estimated 9.5 m tonnes of plastic released into the oceans each year could be primary microplastics, almost two-thirds of which come from the washing of synthetic textiles and the abrasion of tyres while driving.
“This report is a real eye-opener, showing that plastic waste is not all there is to ocean plastics,” says IUCN Director General, Inger Andersen. “Our daily activities, such as washing clothes and driving, significantly contribute to the pollution choking our oceans, with potentially disastrous effects on the rich diversity of life within them, and on human health.
These findings indicate that we must look far beyond waste management if we are to address ocean pollution in its entirety. IUCN therefore calls on private sector leadership to undertake the necessary R & D for the needed production shifts.”
In parts of the developed world enjoying effective waste management, such as North America, primary microplastics are a bigger source of marine plastic pollution than plastic waste, according to the report. Synthetic textiles are the main source of primary microplastics in Asia and tyres dominate in the Americas, Europe and Central Asia.
“The findings of this report have important implications for the global strategy to tackle ocean plastic pollution, which currently focuses on reducing plastic waste,” says Joao de Sousa, Marine Project Manager, IUCN’s Global Marine Programme. “They show that solutions must include product and infrastructure design as well as consumer behaviour. Synthetic clothes could be designed to shed fewer fibres, for example, and consumers can act by choosing natural fabrics over synthetic ones.”
Recent calls to ban the use of microbeads in cosmetics are a welcome initiative, but as this source is only responsible for 2% of primary microplastics, the effects of a potential ban would be limited, the report states.
Plastic pollution harms marine wildlife and is thought to accumulate in the food web, with potentially negative consequences for human health. Effects on fragile ecosystems in regions such as the Arctic, where microplastics could affect ice formation and melting, are still unknown.
The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) and Super Eagles manager, Gernot Rohr, have been having sleepless nights immediately the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon became African Nations Cup champions.
Super Eagles manager, Gernot Rohr
Nigeria, Cameroon, Zambia and Algeria are in the same World Cup African qualifying group. Although Nigeria is leading the group, the determinant factor appears to be the two-legged encounter between Nigeria and Cameroon in August.
Reports reaching us have it that NFF has engaged the Nigeria Embassy staff in Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, to help monitor some of their local players with video tapes of matches played.
Rohr, on the other hand, has engaged the services of three French coaches to study the match tapes of the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon, and come up with the best approach on how to play the World Cup qualifiers in August.
Rohr, who is currently in France, said that the Cameroon head coach is seriously monitoring Nigeria’s foreign-based players, especially Alex Iwobi, Victor Moses, Kelechi Iheanacho and Ahmed Musa.
In order to keep the Super Eagles in shape for the August crucial match, the NFF has gotten approval for the two international friendlies fixed for next month in London.
The first is against the Teranga Lions of Senegal on March 23rd and March 27th against the Stallions of Burkina Faso at the Barnet FC of England’s Stadium.
Meanwhile, the newly-crowned African champion, Cameroon, have lined up a friendly with the Tunisian national team, the Carthage Eagles, at the Mustapha Ben Jannet Stadium in Monastir on March 24th.
As the 2016/17 English Premier League season reaches the third-quarter stage, clubs have begun to engage themselves in a horse race, as they gun for players with an eye on next season’s campaign.
Dele Alli of Tottenham Hotspur and some other outstanding players are being eyed by clubs
Second place league table occupier, Manchester City, have beamed their searchlights on the sensational Dele Alli of Tottenham Hotspur, dangling a mouth-watering £89 million.
The 20-year-old midfielder, who also laces his boots for England, had signed a six-year contact in September to remain in Spurs until 2022, raking in nearly £55,000 a week at White Hart Lane.
Alli is also on the radar of Real Madrid, Barcelona and PSG. Manchester City boss, Pep Guardiola is planning a £40 million double bid for Atletico Madrid’s French brothers Lucas and Theo Hernandez this summer.
Lucas, 21, is a centreback while Theo, 19, plays at leftback.
Atletico could also be tempted in a part exchange deal involving disgruntled striker Sergio Aguero.
Arsenal and Manchester United are in talks to sign Monaco star Fabinho – but the player himself favours a move to Manchester City, claims his father.
The versatile Brazilian, who can play at full back or in midfield and has long been linked with a switch to Old Trafford, also has interest from Barcelona.
Rated at upwards of £35million, the 23-year-old would not come cheap but, according to his father, that is not deterring his suitors who are already talking to his representatives about a summer switch.
“Nigeria is committed to sustainable economic development. The Lagos event is a concrete step in the process of developing and issuing our 2017 Sovereign Green Bonds programme.”
The Nigerian Stock Exchange in Lagos will host the Green Bonds forum
Those are the assuring words of Amina Mohammed, the Minister of Environment, as the nation’s aspiration to become a green economy inches closer.
This is courtesy of a forum that pits Federal Government officials with investors and capital market operators. Themed “Green Bonds: Investing in Nigeria’s Sustainable Development”, the flagship Green Bond Conference is holding at the instance of the Federal Ministry Environment, Federal Ministry of Finance and the Debt Management Office, in Lagos on Thursday, February 23 2017.
Acting President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State, and Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State will grace the occasion, which will feature panel discussions, exhibitions and paper presentation.
The Sovereign Green Bonds project is part of a strategic process by the Federal Government to add to the nation’s funding options to catalyse the rebound of the economy and offer Nigerians a new alternative.
It was gathered that the Green Bonds issuance will be the first stage in enabling Nigerians tap into the growing global market for Green Bonds which, as at the end of 2016, comprised of $576 billion of unlabeled climate-aligned bonds and $118 billion of labeled green bonds.
“A sovereign green bond represents a new stage in development of the Nigerian capital market and opens the way for further corporate issuance and international investment. The NSE is playing a key role to help develop this enormous opportunity for Nigeria and fulfill one of our key objectives as a member of the UN Sustainable Stock Exchange Initiative,” says Oscar N. Onyema, CEO of Nigerian Stock Exchange.
Nigeria’s first Green Bond issuance will be the first ever sovereign issuance in an emerging market, says Ms. Mohammed, adding that the initiative present an opportunity and that the investors conference for Nigeria’s first Green Bond issuance is timely.
Ms. Mohammed and the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, had on January 12, 2017 inaugurated a Public Private Advisory Group Meeting on the Green Bonds, and event that consolidated a Stakeholders’ Consultation held earlier.
A Federal High Court sitting in Lagos and presided by Justice M. Idris has affirmed that the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) is within its rights to demand and get a response from the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) on its request for information on tax benefits granted to tobacco companies under the Export Expansion Grant (EEG) scheme.
According to scientists, tobacco smoking is dangerous to health
ERA/FoEN had, on 28 November 2016, through its solicitor, Yinka Kotoye of Pisces and Gemini Law Office, made the request in line with the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, with the letter addressed to the Comptroller-General of NCS and the other respondent being the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun. The Attorney-General of the federation was copied.
In a letter titled Request for information under the Freedom of Information Act with specific reference to the tax benefit(s) in the tobacco industry, ERA/FoEN made 11 specific requests.
ERA/FoEN is asking the NCS to make public the volume and brand names of cigarettes exported from Nigeria from 2002 till date, those imported within that period, by which company and to which country, how much British American Tobacco Company Nigeria (BATN) benefited from the EEG from 2004 to 2014 and the waivers or tax exemptions the company got from 2004 till date.
It is demanding how much tax waiver, or grants benefited by any other tobacco company operating in Nigeria from 2004 till date, volume of raw tobacco leaf imported into Nigeria by BATN and from which country and volume of shredded tobacco imported into Nigeria by the company and from which country.
Other demands are: volume of raw tobacco leaf imported into Nigeria by any other tobacco company, into Nigeria and from which country, volume of shredded tobacco by any other tobacco company, into Nigeria and from which country, location of cigarette factories in Nigeria, and volume and brands produced from each factory.
According to the motion exparte by the ERA/FoEN solicitors on Friday February 10, 2017, Attorney General and the Minister of the Federation and the Finance minister were urged to mandate the NCS to comply with the mandatory provisions of the FOI Act to make the documents sought by ERA/FoEN.
ERA/FoEN Deputy Executive Director, Akinbode Oluwafemi, said: “This is a good development as we have reiterated that our demand aligns with the Federal Government attempts to track and trace the revenue that was illegally diverted into private hands or undue grants that was used to bleed our economy. We are very much interested in the economics of tobacco business in Nigeria.”
ERA/FoEN went to court after the mandatory seven-day period of response from the NCS under Section 5 of the FOI Act to respond elapsed with no response from the agency. The case was adjourned to 24 February 2017.
The Executive Board of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) in Bonn, Germany on Monday, February 20 2017 convened its first meeting in 2017.
Frank Wolke of Germany (right) and Arthur Rolle of the Bahamas
At the start of this 93rd meeting, the Executive Board elected Frank Wolke of Germany and Arthur Rolle of the Bahamas as Chair and Vice-Chair, respectively. Mr. Wolke and Mr. Rolle will serve until the first meeting of the Executive Board in 2018.
Mr. Wolke, who joined the Board in 2014, is Head of Section, Emissions Reduction Projects, Emissions Trading Authority at the German Federal Environment Agency.
Mr. Rolle, who joined the Board in 2015, is a Consultant at the Ministry of the Environment and Housing, and participates in the climate change negotiation process under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The new Chair takes over from Mr. Eduardo Calvo. The new Vice-Chair takes over from Mr. Frank Wolke, who also served as Vice-Chair of the Board last year.
The CDM allows emission-reduction projects in developing countries to earn certified emission reduction (CER) credits, each equivalent to one tonne of CO2. These CERs can be traded and sold, and used by industrialised countries to a meet a part of their emission reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol.
According to the UNFCCC, the mechanism stimulates sustainable development and emission reductions, while giving industrialised countries some flexibility in how they meet their emission reduction limitation targets.
But certain quarters have frowned at the initiative, claiming that it encourages industrialised to continue to pollute in the belief that they can “offset” such emissions elsewhere.
The CDM is said to be the main source of income for the UNFCCC Adaptation Fund, which was established to finance adaptation projects and programmes in developing country Parties to the Kyoto Protocol that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. The Adaptation Fund is financed by a 2% levy on CERs issued by the CDM.
