Maximising the lessons of the 2017 Climate Change Summit

Since 1992, the global conference on climate change has become an annual ritual where leaders of nations gather to deliberate on issues relating to climate change and the dangers they pose to human beings.

The 2015 version of the conference, held in Paris, was particularly remarkable as it led to the production of a global instrument named Paris Agreement which outlined concrete solutions to the problems. The expectation was that at least 55 nations of the world would sign up to the agreement by November 2017 to make it operational and binding. Just this week, world leaders gathered again in Paris for the celebration of the 2nd year anniversary of the Paris Agreement and we learnt that not just 55 but all the world leaders with the exception of Syria’s and United State of America’s presidents have lent their support to the Paris Agreement.

No matter the weight we may think that American president carries, he has been trumped this time by the majority and as we say in Nigeria majority has carried the vote.

Those of us who monitored development from Nigeria were elated by the fact that our president, Muhammadu Buhari, by signing the Paris Agreement since 2016 has effectively put Nigeria on the radar as one of the countries committed to the values which the Agreement embodies. The President had said then that Nigeria’s commitment is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions unconditionally by 20 percent by 2020 and conditionally by 455 percent by 2030.

According to the UN Inventory Nigeria contributes 212, 444 greenhouse gas emission to the atmosphere representing about 0.57% of global total.

I have undertaken a personal attempt to match Nigeria’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), the document upon which the president based his accent to the Agreement and the situation on ground with regards to Nigeria’s readiness to meeting the objectives of the document.

My discovery is that the ball is still stuck to the ground. Thus, despite the President telling the world in Paris this Tuesday that his “government is actively promoting technologies and practices such as sustainable land management, climate resilient agriculture, water efficiency, clean energy, and skills for reducing greenhouse gas emissions among others,” there is nothing to show that we have put forward our foot towards meeting our promise to the world three years to the expiration date of the 20% unconditional target. My immediate reaction on noticing this is to pray that the NDC and the Paris Agreement do not go the way of Millennium Development Goals where we failed woefully in meeting any of the stated goals.

I think that the major impediment to Nigeria meeting the objectives of the Paris Agreement or its NDC is its over-reliance on handouts and expected aids from industrialised nations. This is noticeable in President Buhari’s speeches during the signing of the Agreement in 2016 and during the 2017 Summit.

It is shocking that big as Nigeria is our hope of actualising the Agreement and our NDC rests squarely on the generosity of donors. When you take into account the fact that the expected donors have pledged in 2015 to kick-start their US$100 billion per year to less industrialised nations by 2020, it becomes clearer to you that we missed the 2020 mark even before it took off. And if Donald Trump is re-elected the president of the USA by 2020, it will be nearly impossible for America, the world’s largest donor nation, to contribute to the US$100 billion per year. The implication being that the donor funding target is likely not to be realised throughout the duration of his presidency putting Nigeria and other nations who hope to actualise the Agreement mainly by aids and donations in the wood.

The horizon, however, is not entirely dark. The president might not have brought the aid money from industrialised nations, but I hope he would not forget to return with the major lesson of the 2017 summit on mobilisation of private sector towards the actualisation of the Agreement. In America, for instance, where the government of Trump has baulked, the private sector led by Bill Gates has put their weight behind the Agreement vowing to push their enormous resources towards actualising the Agreement. Nigeria’s government must find a way to get Nigeria’s private sector to buy into our nation’s NDC and ensure that we are not left behind in actualising the Paris Agreement.

Also, given the great danger which the climate change is exposing all of us to it may not be out of place for the government to consider a sort of Climate Tax payable by companies and even individual citizens and managed by a boards just to ensure that we actualise the Paris Agreement.

While we are on it, government policymakers should be open-minded enough to review Nigeria’s NDC as some of its objectives have been rendered archaic by new inventions. It is a national embarrassment that while France’s President is talking of fueless vehicles by 2030, our NDC is talking of shifting the emphasis of our transport system from cars to buses as measure of our attainment.

It is also worrisome that we have intensified our quest for petrodollars by expanding exploration for petroleum in the Lake Chad and River Benue Basins in a world where our competitors are rendering fossil fuels useless. If these explorations come out successful, we will increase and not decrease our greenhouse gas emission.

And given the volatile nature of the environments in the Northern region of Nigeria where desert encroachment and harsh weather conditions have continued to pose challenges to human thriving, adding petroleum related environmental hazards to the mix will, in the long run, render our entire country unliveable and make the actualisation of Paris Agreement an impossible task.

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