On the second day at the global summit, President Muhammadu Buhari met with African leaders from Ghana, Guinea, Mali and Niger with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on the sidelines of the UN Climate Change Conference, COP21, in Paris on 1st Dec 2015.
In the company of Environment Minister, Amina Mohammed, he also met with members of the Nigerian delegation to the COP, including staff of MDAs and negotiators.
President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday in Paris at the ongoing UN climate change conference (COP21) asked developed countries to make strong financial commitments to the $14 billion urgently needed to revive the Lake Chad and save communities dependent on the river from extinction.
The largest lake in the Chad Basin, Lake Chad is a historically large, shallow lake in Africa, which has varied in size over the centuries. According to the Global Resource Information Database of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), it shrank as much as 95% from about 1963 to 1998. The lake is economically important, providing water to more than 68 million people living in Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria.
Addressing a high level meeting on “Climate Change Challenges and Solutions in Africa’’, on the sidelines of the global summit, President Buhari said no fewer than five million people living in the Lake Chad Basin countries have been displaced by the depletion of the lake due to climate change.
The President said the shrinkage of Lake Chad, a former island sea, had resulted in increased social conflicts, high rates of migration and cross border movements.
“Nigeria has a large population of over 170 million people and in some parts of Northern Nigeria, a farm that used to belong to 10 people now belongs to over 100 people. They have no other place to live and no land for cultivation,” he said.
President Buhari recalled that a research conducted by a professor in a London university and published more than three decades ago had predicted that unless one or some of the rivers from the Central African region are diverted to empty into the Lake Chad basin, the river will dry up.
He noted that, sadly, prediction has become reality as the lake which covers over 25,000 square kilometers in 1925 have shrunk to 2,500 square kilometers.
“The amount of resources required and the high technological expertise and infrastructure needed to be undertaken to revive the Lake Chad has to be mainly financed by the G7 and the United States.
“The cost is great and more than 14 billion dollars is needed to revive the Lake.
“But if that is achieved, at least five million people from Central African Republic to the Lake Chad Basin countries (Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Benin) will be rehabilitated.
“When this is done those who are daring to cross the Sahara desert and the Mediterranean to come to Europe will remain at home because they have land where they can cultivate and earn a respectable living,” he said.
President Buhari used the occasion of his address on the second day of the climate change conference to reiterate his appeal to leaders from the developed countries to make revival of the Lake Chad a top priority.
On Nigeria’s plans to tackle climate change, President Buhari told the meeting attended by the French President, UN Secretary-General and several African leaders that the country was blessed with natural gas to boost the country’s energy needs.
He said although the technology to optimally utilise natural gas in the country was expensive for the country to maintain, Nigeria welcomes international partnerships and initiatives for lower carbon in the oil and gas sector that focuses on reducing natural gas flaring and capturing the product for commercial use.
Recognising the acute threats that climate change posed to Nigeria’s development, President Buhari said his administration was ready to embrace several opportunities presented by the challenges posed by climate change.
President Muhammadu Buhari in Paris on Monday, November 30 2015 at COP21 addressed global leaders. He was in the company of Minister of Environment Mrs Amina Ibrahim Mohammed, National Security Adviser Maj. Gen. Babagana Monguno and Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr Geoffrey Onyema.
Any meaningful and potential agreement on climate change in Paris must draw extensively on the principles of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, President Muhammadu Buhari has said.
President Buhari, who made the submission on Monday in Paris at the opening of the UN climate change summit, added that, for any agreement in Paris to be durable, it must recognise not only the emission right but also the survival rights of the citizens of developing countries.
The President, who, shortly before his arrival to Paris approved Nigeria’s Intended National Determined Contributions (INDCs), called on world leaders to forge a united front to save Lake Chad’s ecosystem from further depletion caused by the adverse effects of climate change.
Speaking at the Leaders Event at COP 21, he lamented that climate change has continued to pose a threat to Nigeria’s security and development.
His words: “At the sub-regional level, we are saddled with the challenge of the drying up of the Lake Chad Basin, which is resulting in the total wipe out of livelihoods of many communities surrounding this transboundary natural resource.
“Regrettably, the world is leaving behind millions of people who depend on the Lake for their survival.
“The Government of Nigeria welcomes the Lake Chad Development and Climate Resilience Plan, and the Lake Chad Basin Commission and international partners for designing this climate-based Plan.
“In all, the experience of countries sharing the Lake Chad further illustrates the mutual challenge we face today and which must be collectively addressed without further delay.”
The President also used the occasion of his address to around 150 leaders, who attended the opening ceremony of the summit, to affirm Nigeria’s position of a potential agreement that equitably addresses climate change mitigation and adaptation activities.
He said the potential agreement must make provisions for adequate financing, technology transfer and capacity development in the developing countries.
The President therefore called for the establishment of an effective means of monitoring, reviewing and verification of availability as well as accessibility of funds to the developing countries in order to address the challenges of climate change.
He assured world leaders of Nigeria’s readiness to support a legally binding and all-encompassing Paris Agreement, which must be fair to all.
As Nigeria joins the rest of the world to commemorate this year’s World AIDS Day, observers have expressed the fact that the country should plan adequately and be committed to fulfilling related promises and goals that will ensure improved health care for proper well-being of the citizenry, particularly women and children.
HIV & AIDS are part of the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which were adopted at the United Nations summit held from 25 to 27 September, 2015 in New York. The Goal 3 seeks to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages by grouping together HIV & AIDS, maternal newborn and child health, tuberculosis, malaria, hepatitis, water-borne diseases and other communicable diseases.
The Sustainable Development Goal 3 also shows that HIV & AIDS, maternal mortality, child morality and other diseases are related to the well-being of the people. It targets an end to the epidemics of AIDS by 2030 and seeks to reduce maternal mortality ratio to less than 70 per 100,000 live births from about 576 per 100,000 according to the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) 2013.
President of the Society of Gynaecology and Obstetrics of Nigeria (SOGON), Prof Brian Adinma, at the just concluded 9th international congress, said Nigeria did not perform well in the MDGs 4 and 5. According to him, there is a need to re-strategise under the new development agenda of the SDGs.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) says HIV continues to be a major global public health issue, having claimed more than 34 million lives so far. According to the health organisation, about 1.2 million people died from HIV-related causes globally while sub-Saharan Africa is the most affected region, with about 25.8 million people living with HIV in 2014.
Consequently, the NOTAGAIN Campaign urges the federal government of Nigeria to use the opportunity presented by the World AIDS Day 2015 to improve the health sector by increasing budgetary allocations to the sector, implementing the National Health Act 2014, and training of skilled health workers. There is also a need to employ and motivate health workers for improved health outcomes, adds the campaign.
In order to achieve the SDGs, the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA), has advocated for more investment, commitment and accelerated innovation towards reducing the AIDS epidemic.
Similarly, the WHO has urged nations to act more boldly. “Achieving these targets will require bold action, with the health sectors of nations around the world playing a central role,” says Dr Winnie Mpanju-Shumbusho, WHO Assistant Director General for HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases.
Fresh scheme focuses on early warning-early action systems, insurance, and increasing investment in bid to accelerate climate resilience efforts
A new initiative to build climate resilience in the world’s most vulnerable countries was launched in Paris on Monday, November 30 2015 by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and 13 members within the UN system at COP21, the Paris Climate Conference. The new initiative will strengthen the ability of countries to anticipate hazards, absorb shocks, and reshape development to reduce climate risks.
The newly announced initiative, the UN Secretary-General’s Climate Resilience Initiative – Anticipate, Absorb, Reshape – will help address the needs of the nearly 634 million people, or a tenth of the global population who live in at-risk coastal areas just a few meters above existing sea levels, as well as those living in areas at risk of droughts and floods. The world is now experiencing a strong El Niño event, which could place as many as 4.7 million people at risk from drought in the Pacific alone.
Bringing together private sector organisations, governments, UN agencies, research institutions and other stakeholders to scale up transformative solutions, the SG’s Resilience Initiative will focus on the most vulnerable people and communities in Small Island Developing States, Least Developed Countries, and African countries.
Over the next five years, the Initiative will mobilise financing and knowledge; create and operationalize partnerships at scale, help coordinate activities to help reach tangible results, catalyse research, and develop new tools.
The Secretary-General’s Climate Resilience Initiative will support the work of partners, such as the Africa Risk Capacity, to ensure that, by the time the new climate agreement enters into force in 2020, over 30 countries are provided with $2 billion in coverage against drought, flood and cyclones, including $500 million in adaptation financing. 150 million Africans will be indirectly insured.
While much of the attention at Paris is focused on reducing emissions in a bid to keep global temperature rise to less than two degrees Celsius by the end of the century, many climate impacts will continue to increase – including rising sea level and more extreme weather events – even if greenhouse emissions cease, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
A recent report issued by the UN shows that over the last 20 years, 90 per cent of major disasters have been caused by 6,457 recorded floods, storms, heatwaves, droughts and other weather-related events.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, “These are the people who did the least to cause climate change, yet they stand to lose their homes, their jobs, and even their lives because of the growing impacts of climate change. That is why I have asked the UN system to put together a package of initiatives to address this urgent need.”
“The Secretary-General’s Climate Resilience Initiative signals a new era in how the United Nations and its agencies think about our global future, said Dr. Judith Rodin, author of The Resilience Dividend and president of The Rockefeller Foundation, which has made pioneering investments of more than a half-billion dollars to build resilience globally over the past decade. “Crisis is the new normal, and our world demands that we seek solutions that solve multiple problems at once, for the greatest number of people, while strengthening the fabric of their communities, economies, and lives.”
The 13 UN entities participating in the Initiative are FAO, UNEP, UNFCCC, UN-Habitat, UNICEF, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNOPS, UNISDR, WFP, OCHA, WHO, and WMO.
The Secretary-General’s Climate Resilience Initiative brings transformative projects from different agencies in several areas, including for example:
Early warning systems and preparedness: The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN will continue to build on its various early warning systems to ensure early action is triggered to reduce impact on agriculture-based livelihoods and develop comprehensive early warning-early action systems, including for El Niño affected countries.. The World Food Programme will launch FoodSecure, financially and programmatically support community-centred action by using forecast-based financing to enable community resilience building and preparedness before climatic shocks occur. “UNEP currently invests US$20 million annually in supporting Ecosystem-based Adaption in 47 countries as part of its EbA Flagship Programme and will catalyse further action to strengthen EbA as part of overall national adaptation planning.
Insurance and social protection: WFP and Oxfam America, with support from the reinsurance company Swiss Re, are already helping 31,000 vulnerable rural households increase their food security by integrating disaster risk reduction, micro-insurance, livelihoods diversification, credit and savings into productive safety net programmes. Over the next 10 years, the programme aims to reach an additional 500,000 farmers in 10 countries. UNEP’s Principles for Sustainable Insurance (PSI), the largest collaboration between the UN and the insurance industry, has a global membership approaching 100 organizations, including insurers representing 20% of world premium and $14 trillion in assets. PSI will create a Sustainable Insurance Policy Forum to scale up policy progress by insurance regulators in addressing climate and sustainability risks.
Decision making: To better build physical and natural infrastructure, UNOPS launched Resilience Pathways, a tool to help countries integrate resilience planning across multiple sectors of their hard and soft infrastructure. It will be progressively implemented across 30 countries by 2020. UN Habitat is currently leading an initiative to help build urban resilience in sub-Saharan Africa. UN-Habitat is leading a global resilience initiative, the City Resilience Profiling Programme to build resilience of the most vulnerable urban populations. The Agency also deployed the CityRap tool in African cities to train city officials to produce their own City Resilience Action Plans in Mozambique, Malawi, Madagascar, Cape Verde, São Tomé e Príncipe, Guinea Bissau and the Union of Comoros. At least 300-400 municipal officials will be trained and the tool will concern at least half a million people cumulatively until mid 2016.
The private sector also has an important role to play, for example, Global Adaptation and Resilience Investment Working Group, launched by Siguler Guff & Co., will mobilize private sector investment in climate adaptation and resilience. The Working Group is evaluating the potential for a $1 billion investment vehicle that could invest in both developed and developing countries around climate adaptation and resilience. ING has committed to allocate at least 20 per cent of the proceeds from the issuance of a five-year EUR 500 million and three-year US$800 million green bond to fund new projects, including for resilience.
Governments also pledged support to the initiative. Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte said, “We need to strengthen the resilience of people if we want them to develop. We therefore fully support the Secretary General’s Climate Resilience Initiative and are proud to contribute. The Netherlands will support better decision making and national dialogues on resilience through the ‘Partners for Resilience’ programme.”
Six heads of state and government and the leaders of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund in Paris on Monday, November 30 2015 called on companies and countries to follow up on their ambitions for Paris by putting a price on carbon to drive investment for a cleaner, greener future.
In a remarkable show of unity on the first day of the climate talks in Paris, heads of state and government from a number of countries called on the world to start pricing carbon pollution as a key to combatting climate change and transforming the global economy. The heads of state and government included the leaders of France, Chile, Ethiopia, Germany, Mexico and Canada.
“The goal is to gradually set a sufficiently high carbon price around the world to encourage better behaviour,” said H.E. President François Hollande of France. “In France, the Energy Transition Act has already made provision for a substantial increase in the price of carbon, to €22 per metric tonne next year and a projected €100 by 2030. In Europe, we will also improve our carbon market while ensuring that the most compliant countries remain competitive. Very quickly, a company consuming less CO2 should gain a decisive competitive advantage.”
The call by heads of state and government was echoed by ministers and CEOs from around the world at another event on Monday in Paris to officially launch the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition (CPLC). The Coalition brings together key governments such as Mexico, Germany, France, Chile and California, along with nearly 90 global businesses and NGOs.
Partners in the Coalition have adopted an agreed course of action that advances carbon pricing by collecting and sharing the best evidence of successful carbon pricing policy, mobilising business support for more ambitious action, and convening leadership dialogues around the world with the goal of tackling the political challenges that prevent greater use of carbon pricing.
“We are seeing increasing momentum from heads of state and other global leaders to put a price on carbon pollution, but more action is needed to cut harmful polluting emissions,” said World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim. “These statements of support from leaders today are critically important, as is the work of Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition. We must ensure that this momentum for carbon pricing translates into impact on the ground.”
“A successful outcome to the Paris climate talks will send a powerful message that nations can work together for the good of the planet,” said IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde. The right carbon price should be at the center of this effort. Indeed, given the slump in energy prices, there has never been a better time to transition to smart, credible and effective carbon pricing. Policy makers need to price it right, tax it smart, and do it now.”
Ahead of the Paris talks more than 90 developed and developing countries, including the European Union, have indicated plans to use international, regional, or domestic carbon pricing schemes for mitigation action.
Pricing carbon can deliver multiple benefits including reducing health and environmental impacts, like premature deaths from exposure to outdoor air pollution. It provides governments with the financing needed to support sustainable development as well as spurring greater investments in low carbon growth. Through carbon pricing, countries can provide an incentive for businesses and investors to reduce their exposure to carbon, while accelerating investments in clean energy, clean transport and clean technologies.
About 40 nations and 23 cities, states and regions have implemented or are putting a price on carbon with programmes and mechanisms covering about 12 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. The coverage is expected to grow, given China’s recent announcement to bring in a national emissions trading system in 2017.
A recent World Bank report, State and Trends of Carbon Pricing 2015, shows the number of implemented or planned carbon pricing schemes around the world has almost doubled since 2012 and are now worth about $50 billion.
Leaders of 30 nations on Monday, November 30 2015 at the Paris climate conference (COP21) jointly issued a historic declaration linking the hands of world’s vulnerable countries across continents. The broad coalition of middle income, least developed and small island developing states worldwide opened prospect of high ambition agreements at COP21 with issuing of what seems like the strongest call to date for full decarbonisation of the world economy 100% renewable energy by 2050, and zero emissions by mid-century in order to keep the world on track for below 1.5 degrees of warming.
“Individually, we are already survivors; collectively, we are a force towards a fairer, more climate-proactive world,” said Philippine President Benigno S. Aquino III.
The Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF), a body of countries highly vulnerable to climate change founded in 2009, adopted the Manila-Paris Declaration and a three-year Road Map of Activities aimed at enhancing cooperation among and protection for the world’s vulnerable countries.
“Emission cuts harming economic growth is a myth. A commitment to reduce emissions is most likely a commitment to strengthen economic growth. This has been Costa Rica’s experience. Keeping warming to a minimum to below 1.5 degrees won’t simply deliver safety and prosperity, it will also deliver justice,” said Minister of Foreign Affairs of Costa Rica Manuel Gonzalez.
“We refuse to be the sacrifice of the international community in Paris. Anything that takes our survival off the table here is a red line. All parties have an obligation to act. Not doing so is a crime. This Declaration is just the beginning of our efforts to step up our voice and collaboration,” said Anwar Hossain Manju, Hon. Minister of Environment of Bangladesh.
“Climate change does not affect us equally. Those countries which have contributed least to the problem are often affected the most. We are here to cooperate. We are here to share experiences. Even if we contribute the least and suffer the most, we do not sit idle. Ethiopia, for example, communicated in its INDC that it will reduce emissions by 64 percent by 2030,” said Ethiopia State Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Kare Chawicha. Ethiopia was confirmed as the incoming chair of the CVF for the period 2016-2017.
The Forum’s dedicated track of Ministers of Finance, the Vulnerable Twenty (V20) Group, also reported on updates from the efforts of its Working Group since foundation last month in Lima, Peru. V20 Chair and Secretary of Finance, Cesar V. Purisima announced: “We are convinced that the V20 has its role to play in helping to unlock the full potential of climate finance as we look to a new international partnership for moving our effort forward. We will work in this context to take steps to enable our economies to benefit from $20 billion in new and additional finance by 2020, drawing from international, regional and domestic sources, and leveraging maximum degrees of private finance.”
The third ever High-Level meeting of the Climate Vulnerable Forum held in Paris on 30 November 2015 was the culmination of nearly two years of expert, diplomatic and senior official consultations including five regional meetings that culminated on 9-11 November 2015 with a global preparatory meeting in Manila that issued The Manila Communique.
All nominated incoming member countries named in The Manila Comminuque were recognised by the body.
World leaders gave a unanimous thumbs up to signal a positive start of the UN Climate talks on Monday in Paris, as they expressed commitment and faith in a multilateral process to combat the adverse impacts of climate change.
In what looks like a change to the climate talks format, world leaders spoke first to launch the negotiations, with 11 governments on Monday pledging nearly $250 million towards support for vulnerable communities to adapt to climate change. According to International humanitarian and development organisation, ACT Alliance, the move signaled hope for an ambitious agreement that would secure the planet’s future.
Speaking from the ground at the UNFCCC COP21 in Paris, the alliance said that the contributions to the Least Developed Countries Fund showed a new commitment to supporting poor and vulnerable communities and an acknowledgment that action is now needed.
”We welcome these climate finance contributions and we remind the negotiators that there is need to come up with a financial mechanism in the new agreement which shall ensure sustainability and predictability of finance support for resilience of those already suffering the adverse impacts of climate change,” ACT’s Global Climate Change Ambassador, Archbishop Most Reverend Dr Thabo Makgoba, said.
“The commitments by several countries to reduce emissions, with some clearly setting the peak years, is critical. It is important to get such commitments, and we want our negotiators to ensure that they come up with an agreement that will help the world decarbonise by the middle of the century. We need to embrace a goal and work towards achieving it,” said Mattias Soderberg, ACT Alliance Co-Chair of the Advisory Group on Climate Advocacy.
”It is important that all countries take part in climate action,” stated Söderberg, who is also head of the ACT Alliance delegation attending the talks. “The world is no longer developed and developing. Paris is an opportunity to ensure that all take part in climate action based on their capacity. Those with more capacity should do more and those with little capacity should be supported to do more”.
”By no means should any country be left behind,” reiterated Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, stressing that all countries have a role to play from today if the fight against the adverse impacts of climate change is to be won, in accordance with their capabilities and responsibility.
A coalition of close to 40 governments, hundreds of businesses and influential international organisations on Monday called for accelerated action to phase out fossil fuel subsidies, a move that would help bridge the gap to keep global temperature rise below 2°C.
On the opening day of the UN Conference on Climate Change (COP21), New Zealand Prime Minister John Key formally presented the Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform Communiqué to Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), on behalf of the Friends of Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform, The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group and other supporters of the Communiqué.
The Communiqué calls on the international community to increase efforts to phase out perverse subsidies to fossil fuels by promoting policy transparency, ambitious reform and targeted support for the poorest.
Governments spend over $500 billion of public resources a year to keep domestic prices for oil, gas and coal artificially low. Removing fossil fuel subsidies would reduce greenhouse gas emission by 10 per cent by 2050. It would also free up resources to invest in social and physical capital like education, healthcare and infrastructure, while leveling the playing field for renewable energy.
John Key, Prime Minister of New Zealand, said: “Fossil fuel subsidy reform is the missing piece of the climate change puzzle. It’s estimated that more than a third of global carbon emissions, between 1980 and 2010, were driven by fossil fuel subsidies. Their elimination would represent one seventh of the effort needed to achieve our target of ensuring global temperatures do not rise by more than 2°C. As with any subsidy reform, change will take courage and strong political will, but with oil prices at record lows and the global focus on a low carbon future – the timing for this reform has never been better.”
Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said in accepting the Communiqué: “These subsidies contribute to the inefficient use of fossil fuels, undermine the development of energy efficient technologies, act as a drag on clean, green energy deployment and in many developing countries do little to assist the poorest of the poor in the first place. The huge sums involved globally could be better spent on schools, health care, renewable energies and building resilient societies. The current, very low oil prices are a good opportunity to really get going on this issue.”
Stefan Löfven, Prime Minister of Sweden, said: “History will prove fossil fuel to be a dead end. Sweden will be amongst the first fossil free welfare nations of the world. And eliminating fossil fuel subsidies is an important step on this path.”
Hakima El Haite, Environment Minister of Morocco, candidate for the presidency of COP22, said: “Not only do fossil fuel subsidies put a strain on government coffers but they also don’t help the poorest of society.”
Philippe Joubert, Chair of The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group and former president of Alstom Power, said: “The CLG’s long-standing efforts to put a price on carbon, including most recently working with the World Bank through the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition, will soon deliver results. It doesn’t make sense that, at the same time, governments artificially deflate the cost of coal, oil and gas, the primary cause of GHG emissions. Fossil fuel subsidies must be ended to stop this contradiction and enhance a real transition to low carbon energy.”
OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría said: “Countries need to demonstrate with concrete actions and policies that they are serious about combating climate change. Reforming harmful fossil-fuel support is a good place to start.”
Close to 40 countries have endorsed the Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform Communiqué, including Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Peru, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Samoa, the United Kingdom, the United States, Uganda and Uruguay.
The Communiqué is supported by The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group (23 global companies employing two million people worldwide with combined revenues exceeding $170 billion) and other business organisations working with thousands of corporations and investors, including The B Team, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and the We Mean Business coalition. The Communiqué has also been endorsed by influential international organisations including the International Energy Agency, the OECD and the World Bank.
Eliminating fossil fuel subsidies can accelerate the economic shift needed to tackle climate change and remove one of the obstacles to delivering the low-carbon future COP21 is aiming for.
