Nigeria has disclosed that its participation at the 19th Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) holding in Warsaw, Poland will enable it ensure that its concerns as a developing nation as well as an oil producing country are effectively guided and presented.
Permanent Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Environment (FME), Taiye Haruna, who made the disclosure recently in Abuja at a Media Roundtable organised in preparation for the COP, added that the participation would further assist to strengthen existing partnerships/network and also establish other appropriate ones to move the nation forward towards the achievement of its economic transformation agenda.
“I want to therefore assure you that the ministry is committed to implementing the overall mandate of the Climate Change Convention and its Protocol. This present administration acknowledges that inaction is even more expensive as it will hinder the actualisation of Mr. President’s Transformation Agenda and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),” he said.
But he expressed disappointment with “the lack of ambition in the outcomes on the part of Annex 1 countries’ mitigation and finance commitment”, adding that the last conference (COP 18 in Doha, Qatar) had “paved the way for a new phase, focusing on the implementation of the outcomes from negotiations under the AWG-KP and AWG-LCA, and advancing negotiations under the Ad-hoc Working Group on Durban Platform (ADP).
Haruna recalled that COP 18 focused on ensuring the implementation of agreements reached at previous conferences.
His words: “The outcome of the COP 18 ‘Doha Gateway’ decisions included amendments to the Kyoto Protocol to establish its Second Commitment Period. Having been launched at First Commitment Period (CMP 1) in 2005, the Ad-hoc Working Group on Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) terminated its work in Doha.
“Ad-hoc Working Group on Long Term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA) and negotiations under the Bali Action Plan were also terminated at the conference. Key elements of the outcome also included agreement to consider Loss and Damage, ‘such as’ institutional mechanism to address loss and damage in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.”
Participants at the Roundtable examined issues related to climate change communication, effects of social media on development of small scale adaptations projects in local communities, and the politics of climate change.
Resource persons included: Dr Samuel Adejuwon (Director, Department of Climate Change at the FME), Prof. Olukayode Oladipo (climatologist and negotiator), Prof. Adeniyi Osuntogun (agricultural economist and negotiator) and Michael Simire (urban planner and climate change communication specialist).
You guys are so not serious. You want to be prominent in COP 19 when more than 50 accredited Nigerian delegates were rejected Visa by the Polish government on flimsy excuses. Who is “Haruna”? why are you people full of words and not actions? And instead of you to help those that are really doing the work at grassroots level, you are busy; forming ‘activity’. How can Nigeria have her say when 90% of her active delegates were rejected visa… prominent my foot! You guys better write on something else and don’t let those civil servants and politicians with nothing in their brain deceive you.