The National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) has approached various security agencies including the Nigerian Police Force (NPF) as well as the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) as part of operational arrangements to enforce its mandate.
Controller General of Prisons, Dr Peter Ezenwa Ekpendu (fifth right); DG/CEO of the National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA), Sir. Rufus Ebegba (fourth right); Commandant General of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Abdullahi Muhammadu (third right); Coordinator of Journalists for Social Development Initiative (JSDI), Etta Michael Bisong (second left); and Head of Programmes of JSDI, Gloria Ogbaki, during a familiarity visit to the corporate head office of the NSCDC in Abuja to foster collaboration on the enforcement of the National Biosafety Management Act
It will be recalled that the NBMA shortly after its establishment gave a deadline of six months which expired last December to all operators of modern biotechnology and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the country to formalise their activities or risk being sanctioned according to specifications of the Act.
Director General and Chief Executive Officer of the Agency, Sir Rufus Ebegba, who quoted Article IX of the Act to emphasise the importance of the partnership, described modern biotechnology as a double-edge sword that, if not properly and safely regulated, has the ability to threaten public security.
“From the onset the scientists who discovered the technology advised that they must be measures to ensure that it is properly regulated to avert any impact on environment or human health,” Sir Ebebga said.
The DG/CEO, who made the statement recently during a familiarity visit to the corporate head office of the NSCDC in Abuja, explained that the aforementioned Article mandates its operations as a regulatory authority to collaborate with security operatives in carrying out enforcement exercises.
He hinted that, if effectively deployed particularly in agriculture, safe modern biotechnology and use of GMOs have the capacity to improve food production, create jobs and ensure biodiversity protection to foster sustainable national growth.
To ensure that this technology and its activities are carried out according to specifications of the Act, the nation’s biosafety boss highlighted enforcement of field assessment inspections, disasters management and intelligence gathering and sharing as key pertinent areas of interest to the Agency.
He expressed optimism that the NBMA with the current collaboration in addition to various institutional arrangements in place will enforce its constitutional responsibility to ensure that safe modern biotechnology and GMOs are deployed to increase industrial productivity and other forms of economic development.
Abdullahi Muhammadu, Commandant General of the NSCDC, in his response acknowledged the Agency’s request as one of the core mandates of the Corp which is enforced under disaster management.
The Commandant General noted that protection of oil pipelines, power as well as telecommunications base stations usually dominate public perception when issues of critical national infrastructures are raised, but added that the Corp long recognised and considered disaster management as an important element of national security.
He informed that officers have been trained both locally and international and well equipped to combat disasters and pledged its support to work with the NBMA to enforce its operational responsibility and avert acts capable of undermining public safety.
There are two oily stories that should catch our attention. One is about designing and fabrication of a refinery at a Nigerian university and the second one is about new dates for ending gas flaring in Nigeria.
Top 20 gas flaring countries
First is the news that the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, has built a mini refinery that can “produce relatively small quantity of petroleum products.” The relatively small quantity this prototype handles is given as one barrel of crude oil per day. This information was shared at a press briefing on the 38th convocation of the university.
Biafra Refined Crude
It would be interesting to place this breakthrough alongside the bush refineries in the Niger Delta that have been in the business of refining crude oil and supplying a variety of products to consumers in the region. We do not have details of the mini-refinery built at ABU. It would be good to know if any engineering departments in our universities have done studies of the bush refineries to see how the technologies adopted in the illegal operations could be adopted, upgraded and used to meet the energy gaps of the nation. So far the engagement with bush refineries has been by the Joint Military Task Force (JTF) and their methodology has been to bomb or burn the refineries.
The fabrication of a mini crude oil refinery at the ABU would be significant or novel if the technology is different from what has been in operation in the world for over 100 years. Just as anyone can ferment fruits (and grains) to obtain alcohol from them, the folks in the creeks and the scientists in then Biafra had the means of refining crude that could be studied and improved on. A commentator writing in Sahara Reporters once said, “The most damning of Nigerian failures for now is the knowledge that while the defunct Biafra Republic could refine fuel some forty years ago the triumphant old country cannot refine enough fuel for its local consumption today. It’s a shame that cries to the high heavens.”
One recollects how, some years ago, a dispute broke out between scientists at a Nigerian university over who among them was the first to extract alcohol from pineapple and some other local fruits. The point is that the entire dispute was nothing more than a bad joke. Hopefully, this news about refining crude is not.
To Flare or Not to Flare
The second item that should raise our antenna is about when the ongoing routine flaring of associated gas would end in Nigeria. For a period of time, successive governments kept shifting the deadline for ending gas flaring from year to year. During the almost one decade of debates on the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) nothing was said about when gas flaring would end. A specific bill on gas flaring died without a whimper. The flames roared on while governments stayed mute.
The “new” Petroleum Industry Governance & Institutional Framework Bill (PIG-IFB or PI(GIF)B?) that is in the works is totally silent about when gas flaring would end, and is not concerned with communities or environmental issues. It even makes a passing reference to fracking as one of the things that occurs in the upstream sector of the petroleum industry signifying that the oil industry in Nigeria may be getting set to embark on fracking, an extreme form of extraction. Is the new Bill attempting to sidestep the concerns of suffering communities that the old PIB tried to address and how many PIBs should we expect from the present administration?
Okay, we are now told that gas flaring would end between 2018 and 2020. This was disclosed by the Group General Manager, Nigerian Petroleum Investment and Management Services (NAPIMS), Dafe Sajebor, and the Managing Director of National Petroleum Development Corporation (NPDC), Sadler Mai-Bornu, at a meeting with the Senate panel investigating the activities of oil and gas agencies in the country. A bit of news from the blue!
The World Bank plans to see zero routine gas flaring by 2030 and governments that endorse this initiative are expected to provide legal, regulatory, investment, and operating environment that is conducive to upstream business while ensuring that non-flaring of associated gas is in-built in all production plans. It is curious that the proposed PIG-IFB or PI(GIF)B does not say anything about halting routine gas flaring or even about the penalty for the heinous offence.
Obviously more information needs to be placed in the public realm on how the government plans to achieve zero routine gas flaring by 2018-2020. What plans do oil companies like Chevron, Shell, Total and ExxonMobil have to stop the routine flaring of associated gas in the Niger Delta? The biggest gas flaring company in Nigeria is Chevron. Nigeria and Chevron are not among the 45 countries and companies that endorsed the World Bank plan going by the list on the bank’s website. Neither is climate denier ExxonMobil on that roster. Angola, Cameroon, Republic of Congo and Gabon are the only African countries to have endorsed the plan.
If the big polluters are staying off commitment to end gas flaring even by 2030, what should we say is the basis for oilfield communities to hope that they would soon be able to breath fresh air once again?
By Nnimmo Bassey (Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation – HOMEF)
‘The Revenant’ star opens up about his dedication to saving the world from environmental catastrophe in a recent interview with Rolling Stone. Leonardo DiCaprio also talks about his childhood, and his Oscar-buzzed work on ‘The Revenant’
Leonardo Dicaprio
Actor, activist, celebrity, concerned environmentalist and a man willing to brave subzero temperatures and “bear attacks” for his art — Leonardo DiCaprio is all that and more, and Rolling Stone writer Stephen Rodrick spent several days getting to know the movie star.
Tagging along with the 41-year-old DiCaprio in Miami Beach as he filmed sequences for an upcoming documentary on climate change, Rodrick watched as our next probable Best Actor Oscar-winner went toe-to-toe with politicians and policy wonks about the havoc we’re wreaking on our ecosphere at large. “There’s no way we’re not hypocrites about this, and there isn’t a couple of hours a day that I’m not thinking about it. The big question is, is it all too late?” DiCaprio asks.
His “obsession” with the eroding state of our big blue marble was part of the reason, the star claims, that he wanted to take on the part of a 19th-century trapper who braved the elements in director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s The Revenant. “We went with the purpose of seeing what nature was saying,” he declares, before adding that the answer he and the filmmaker got back was “this crazy, insane message that stopped production.”
Some of the highlights from the interview include:
DiCaprio had a Hieronymous Bosch painting hanging above his crib and had his share of fights as a kid.
Asked about his earliest memories, the actor remembers a painting that hung above his crib: Bosch’s infamous “Garden of Earthly Delights,” which depicts Eden being squandered away by man. “You literally see Adam and Eve being given paradise,” DiCaprio says. “Then you see in the middle [of the triptych] this overpopulation and excess … then the last panel is just a burnt-down apocalypse. That was my favorite painting.” (Again, this hung above his crib.)
He also recalls how, while growing up in a sketchy part of East Hollywood with his father, underground artist George DiCaprio, the fact that he was already a young working actor didn’t impress the bullies at his middle school. “I was a bit of a loudmouth,” he admits, “and I was in an environment where the elements aligned to have kids smack the hell outta me once in a while.”
His in-progress documentary about climate change had a colorful working title.
After talking with actor and producer Fisher Stevens about the potential for ecological catastrophe our world faces, the two decided to make a documentary about the various ways our globe is suffering and interview scientists about what we can do to stem the tide. Leo’s idea for a title, however, wasn’t exactly marquee-friendly: He wanted to call it Are We Fucked? “I’m more the light and he’s the dark,” Stevens says. “I’m always saying, ‘Don’t be so fucking pessimistic, man.'”
Edward Norton literally saved Leo’s life.
While DiCaprio and Stevens were filming in the Galapagos Islands, Leo had a bit of a close call during a scuba diving expedition when his air tank stopped working. In desperate need of oxygen, the actor began to panic before an unlikely savior came to his aid: Edward Norton, who was also diving nearby and shared his tank with DiCaprio before they both slowly swam to the surface.
DiCaprio enjoyed going dark on The Revenant — and wants to do something even darker.
For all the tabloid-like trade stories about the difficulty of filming this survivalist Western in rough, remote locales, DiCaprio claims that he felt fulfilled by the experience. And while he does not have a definite follow-up project in mind (though he has optioned an upcoming book about the Volkswagen emissions scandal), he says he “would love to do something even darker (than The Revenant). I don’t know, like how would you penetrate the mind of somebody like Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver? There’s a word in German … schadenfreude. It means humiliation for somebody else, and it can be done in movies, like when Bickle takes (Cybill Shepherd) to the porno theater for his first date. You’re like, ‘Oh, God, please don’t do this!'”
Leo would like to start a family … maybe.
Asked whether he has time in his life for starting a family after he coos over a little girl at a restaurant, DiCaprio answers, “Do you mean do I want to bring children into a world like this? If it happens, it happens.” Then the actor takes the Fifth. “I’d prefer not to get into specifics about it, just because then it becomes something that is misquoted. But yeah. I don’t know. To articulate how I feel about it is just gonna be misunderstood.”
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has officially invited all world leaders to a signing ceremony on 22 April for the historic climate agreement that was reached in Paris in December last year.
UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon at COP21. Photo credit: ibtimes.co.uk
The signing event will take place at UN Headquarters in New York on the first day the agreement will be open for signature, which coincides with the observance of International Mother Earth Day, observed in many countries as simply Earth Day.
The Secretary-General intends to use the occasion of the signing ceremony to further engage leaders from business and civil society to put the new agreement into action.
In his invitation letter, the Secretary-General said that leaders’ participation could also facilitate the early entry into force of the Paris Agreement and “provide for the smooth finalisation of the operational details needed to give effect to the provisions of the new Agreement.”
In Paris, the 196 parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) reached an historic agreement to combat climate change that will spur actions and investment towards a low-carbon, resilient and sustainable future. It is the first agreement that joins all nations in a common cause based on their historic, current and future responsibilities.
The main aim is to keep a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius and to drive efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Additionally, the agreement aims to strengthen capability to deal with the impacts of climate change.
To reach these ambitious and important goals, appropriate financial flows will be put in place, thus making stronger action by developing countries and the most vulnerable possible, in line with their own national objectives.
In his invitation, the Secretary-General thanked heads of state and government for their leadership in combating climate change.
“The adoption of the Paris Agreement caps a remarkable year of multilateral achievements for people and the planet,” he said. “It provides a solid foundation for the low-carbon, climate-resilient transformation of the global economy. This transformation will help secure a future that is safer, healthier and more prosperous for all.”
At least 55 countries, representing at least 55 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, are needed to ratify the agreement before it can take legal effect.
It’s a day in British tradition dedicated to opening boxes of gifts received at Christmas, and that is why it’s called Boxing Day.
Femi Adesina
But what the Adesina family got this last December 26 was a crushing blow, the type Mike Tyson, in his heyday, handed out to his opponents in the ring. It was a blow to the solar plexus: painful, sad, traumatic, leaving an impact that not even time heals. Such pain lasts forever.
President Muhammadu Buhari, whom I am privileged to serve as Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, had told me at a private meeting before Christmas that since I was a Christian, I could take some days off during the Yuletide season to be with my family. That was why Boxing Day found me in Lagos, and at about 4 p.m, I left the house to attend a special church programme billed for 5 p.m. The day was bright and beautiful.
At 4.30 p.m, a few meters to my destination, my phone rang. It was my immediate elder brother, Tayo, a Professor of History at the University of Ibadan. The news he gave fouled up the hitherto cheery atmosphere, and even the sun seemed to have fled from the sky.
An official of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) had called him to say our sister, Foluke, a Professor of Dramatic Arts, at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, had been involved in an accident along the Lagos/Ibadan Expressway. Of the four people in the car, two were certified dead.
The next half an hour was probably the longest I’d ever spent in my life. I made a detour for the house, and continued to communicate with the FRSC official, whose number I had collected from my brother. Later, I contacted Mr Bisi Kazeem, spokesman of the commission and a long time friend, asking him to help with precise information. It came almost at the speed of light. Two people were truly dead, and they were my sister, and her brother-in-law, who was visiting from America. It was him that was being taken to Lagos from Ibadan, to catch a flight back to the U.S that night.
Now, he had boarded a last flight to eternity. Very sad! Tragic!
For the seven Adesina brothers and sisters, this was trauma in the true sense of the word. Five brothers and two sisters, and now, one of the sisters was gone. Like George Orwell wrote in his work, ‘A Hanging,’ “We were a party of men walking together, seeing, feeling, understanding the same world. But with a sudden snap, one of us was gone. One mind less, one world less.”
From Lagos to London, Ibadan to Abeokuta, where the Adesinas are based, it was a festival of tears.
Raindrops fell endlessly from our eyes. Was it not just a little over two years earlier that we buried our mother? Don’t we still miss her keenly, though she died at 75? Yes, she could have lived to be 80, and even more.
Foluke became the automatic mother, keeping everyone under her wings. From her base in University of Botswana, where she was a visiting professor, on sabbatical from OAU, Ife, she was the rallying point for everybody. She was merely home for Christmas, and was to return to Botswana on January 22. Now she was dead, at just 53 years old, a latest victim of famished Nigerian roads.
A lifetime of study and research, gone. All the knowledge, wasted. There are only 10 female professors of Dramatic Arts in Nigeria. Now, one of them was gone, consumed by rapacious Nigerian roads. One mind less, one world less.
The Adesina family of Ipetumodu, in Ife North Local Government Area of Osun State had a patriarch in John Oyebade Adesina, an educationist, who was the first African principal of St Charles Grammar School, Osogbo, in the 1960s. The school was easily the best in the then Western Region, producing students who shone like stars in the West African School Certificate of Education.
From there, the dyed-in-the-wool educationist was transferred to Notre Dame College, Usi-Ekiti. He retired from there to his Ipetumodu homestead in 1971, where his seven children were brought up under what was akin to a ‘military regime.’ He ran the home just exactly as he ran the school.
All of us grew up together, and became quite close, finding succour in one another, and in our mother, whenever our father whipped us till we saw stars. The patriarch passed on in 1985 (we had come to appreciate the discipline imbued in us by then), the matriarch followed in 2013, but the children remained inseparable.
At any given time, you could have three or four Adesina siblings in different parts of the world, pursuing one professional thing or the other. Only Yewande, my immediate younger sister, lives in the U.K permanently, with her family. But we were always in touch. Foluke had created an email group of all seven of us, and we communicated at the touch of a button. There was no separating us. Till the blow of Boxing Day. Now, it is one mind less, one world less.
In 1982, Foluke (by the way, all seven of us are on first name basis, because we were brought up that way, and it is convenient for us) had gone to serve at NTA Minna, in Niger State, after graduating from the then University of Ife. She came back the following year, a completely changed person. We were a religious family, of the Roman Catholic stock, but in Minna, Foluke had met with the Pentecostals, and had become born again.
She has become an S.U, we screamed in mortification!
What are you doing in the midst of people who cry when they pray, who wear long faces, and go about gently? Are you the one that killed Jesus? Our questions were endless. Such people were called S.U, meaning members of the Scripture Union. They believed in patterning their lives scrupulously after the words of the Holy Bible, and were considered rather stuffy by other kind of Christians.
We needled Foluke endlessly, and did all we could to test the quality of her conversion. She held on to her newfound faith, through master’s degree, marriage, Ph.D, professorship, and all the days of her life. No looking back. She had just left the annual retreat of the Deeper Life Bible Church, a day before she met her death. She had spoken with me on getting home, with me not knowing it was valedictory.
But what happened to all her scoffing brothers and sisters over the 32-year period in which Foluke was a born again Christian?
Hear our youngest brother, Dr Olubiyi Adesina, a consultant endocrinologist, in a tribute paid to our sister at her burial in Ibadan last weekend: “I remember the early 80s when my older siblings used to make fun of your newfound S.U status. To me as a young boy, S.Us must have been goblins. To now imagine that all that laughed then are now all S.Us. You started the revolution in the family. Thank you for being a good example.”
Foluke faithfully served the Lord she loved dearly for 32 years, using her skills as a dramatist for evangelism. Even as an academic, she took part in many stage plays, films and concerts, all to expand the Kingdom of God on earth. She was also Fellow of many associations in Nigeria and abroad. She became a professor in 2011, a position backdated by five years.
Time, like an ever rolling stream, has borne her daughter away. But she would not fly forgotten as a dream, which dies at the opening of day. Foluke will always be remembered by her siblings: Wunmi, Tayo, Femi, Yewande, Yemi, and Biyi. Her son, Oluwaseun, her husband, Engineer Segun Ogunleye, and scores of others on whose lives she made great impact, will never forget her.
It is said that as mere mortals, we must never ask God questions. Yes, God is sovereign, but one would not stop wondering why Heaven was so much in a hurry, as to take Foluke now. If Heaven had waited for 20 or 30 years more, would she not have come home one day? Heaven, you needn’t be in such haste, for we shall all come. But let it be in due times and seasons.
I grieved deeply for my sister. I still ache and mourn. As the funeral service held at the Deeper Life Bible Church in Ibadan last weekend, it was as if the service should never end. The fact that her corpse was in the casket inside the church still gave some sort of cold comfort. But the service must inevitably end. And ended it did.
As the casket was borne out, and knowing that interment was only few minutes away, I broke down completely. I wept. Yes, didn’t Jesus also weep? I broke down, and when Dr Yemi Ogunbiyi, former Head of Department of Dramatic Arts in Ife, and Foluke’s former teacher, came to console me, he had a hard job of getting me to stop crying. He ushered me into a vehicle, and that was where eminent virologist, and former oil minister, Prof Tam David-West came to pay his condolence.
The man too was weeping, and I conveniently joined him. It was simply a festival of tears, as many sympathizers could not hold their emotions in check. When Foluke and Tayo had been named professors within a week of each other, I had hosted them to a reception in Ibadan. Prof David-West had been chairman of the event, he gave the professorial charge, so he knew my sister well.
A week before the burial, journalist, pastor and activist, Richard Akinnola, had given me a book written by Ukraine-based Pastor Sunday Adelaja. The book is titled “Myles Munroe: Finding Answers To Why Good People Die Tragic And Early Deaths.” I read the 192-page book, and I must confess that it gave me a lot of relief.
Myles Munroe, a great Christian preacher had died in tragic circumstances in 2014, and the author used him, supported by Scripture, to show that death is really gain. The manner of death, he submitted, does not matter. What matters, according to him, was to fulfill our purpose in life, “and die empty.”
But Foluke still had a lot to give to the academia, to scholarship, to society, to her family, even to Christendom. Can one say she died empty? Well, questions abound. We do not understand it all. The things that are revealed are for men, while the ones that are hidden are for God. We will understand it better by and by.
Messages of condolence came from all corners of the land, and even beyond, to the Adesina family. President Buhari, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, former presidents, clerics, illustrious Nigerians, and people from all walks of life, sympathized with us.
I thank you all.
The Good Book says it is through much afflictions and trials that we will enter into the Kingdom of God. But this one was sure too hard on us. It would be hard on anybody.
“We were a party of men (and women) walking together, seeing, feeling, understanding the same world. But with a sudden snap, one of us was gone. One mind less, one world less.” Seven has now become six. Very sad.
At times, while crying at the loss of my sister, I remember our parents, particularly my mother. She left just two years and five months ago. And I then understand why God took her when He did. If my mother had been around to witness the death of any of her children, it would have been too hard on her. She had died happy in 2013, knowing that all her children were accounted for.
When I wept, therefore, it was partly in thankfulness that Mama was gone without her eyes seeing evil. God knew what was to happen on December 26, 2015, and so took her ahead of time. But then, couldn’t God have stopped the crushing blow of Boxing Day? He could. So, why didn’t He? I stop, before I land in a theological labyrinth, from which I can’t extricate myself.
Foluke, sleep well. I am sure our father’s clock, which used to rouse all of us at 4.45 a.m, would not chime in Heaven. Sleep all you want, till the day of resurrection. The old educationist wouldn’t be whipping you out of bed, like in those days of yore, for refusing to respond to the alarm bell at the height of harmattan.
Adesina is the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari.
The Paris Agreement was adopted in December, but further steps are needed in 2016 to bring it into effect. The first date to look for is April 22, 2016, when heads of state have been invited to a signing ceremony at the UN. The World Resources Institute’s (WRI) Eliza Northrop and Katherine Ross detail the timeline and process
Jubilation as Paris Agreement is adopted. Photo credit: unfccc.int
The world rightly celebrated when 195 countries signed onto a new international climate agreement at COP21 in Paris late last year. The Paris Agreement is a critical turning point – a fundamental pivot toward a zero-carbon and climate-resilient world. But some key steps lie ahead to take the momentum from Paris forward and ensure that the Agreement quickly comes into effect and is fully implemented.
Here, we answer questions on the important steps countries must take to ensure that the Paris Agreement comes into force:
At COP21, countries agreed to the Paris Agreement. Does that mean the Agreement is now in effect?
No, countries still need to take steps so that it takes effect. What occurred on December 12 at COP21 was the “adoption” of the Paris Agreement by the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Adoption is the formal act that establishes the form and content of an agreement.
In addition to adopting the Paris Agreement, the Parties made a number of key decisions about what’s necessary for the Agreement to enter into force. They also agreed on a process for how countries will finalise their current national climate plans and shift them from being Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) into Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
What needs to happen now?
Broadly speaking, countries must now actually join the Paris Agreement and become Parties to it. To do this, each country must now sign and indicate their consent to be bound by the Agreement. Only after at least 55 Parties to the UNFCCC representing at least 55 percent of total global greenhouse gases sign on and indicate their consent to be bound will the Agreement “enter into force,” meaning it will come into effect and be legally binding.
After entry into force, the first meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement will be held. This will be an important time to adopt many of the more detailed rules and procedures necessary to make the Agreement effective.
What’s the timeline for countries to ratify the Agreement?
On April 22, 2016, all Heads of State can sign the Agreement at a high-level signing ceremony at the United Nations in New York. The Agreement will then be open for signature for one year, until April 21, 2017. Given the importance of the Paris Agreement and the political momentum created at COP21, experts expect many countries will attend the high-level signing event.
While signing indicates a commitment to refrain from acts that would defeat the object and purpose of the Agreement, a signature alone does not mean that a country becomes a “Party” to the Paris Agreement. As with many other international agreements, joining the Paris Agreement follows a two-step process: countries must sign the Agreement, and then also indicate their consent to join and be bound by it as Parties.
How do countries indicate their consent to be bound and become Parties?
Most countries will sign the Agreement “subject to ratification, acceptance and approval,” making their signature conditional on obtaining the required domestic approval for joining the Agreement. In some cases, they will also enact any national legislation necessary to implement the Agreement. For example, in Australia, the only requirement is formal notification and introduction of the Agreement in Parliament, whereas in Mexico, the consent of the Senate is also required. In the United States, many international agreements are joined as “executive agreements” based on presidential authority.
When a country fulfills its necessary domestic processes, it will come back and deposit an “instrument of ratification, acceptance or approval.” This is a formal document indicating that it has completed all necessary processes and can now join the Agreement. This can be done as soon after signing as a country chooses, and there is no time limit for when countries submit these forms. A country might deposit its instrument of ratification, acceptance or approval on the same day it signs, or submit it separately much later.
Can Parties still join the Paris Agreement after April 22, 2017 if they didn’t sign it before then?
Yes. After the one-year signing period, the Agreement will be open for what is called “accession.” Accession is simply the term for when a country becomes a Party to an international agreement that other countries have already signed. Depositing an instrument of accession after April 22, 2017 will have the same legal effect as if that country had signed and deposited an instrument of ratification, acceptance or approval – but it is distinct from those.
So when will the Paris Agreement actually enter into force?
The Paris Agreement will be in full legal force and effect when at least 55 Parties to the UNFCCC that account for at least 55 percent of the total global greenhouse gas emissions have deposited their instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession. At this point in time, it is not possible to accurately predict when this will occur, as it depends on how quickly individual countries are able to complete their domestic approval processes. Once the Agreement enters into force, the first meeting of the Parties to the Agreement will occur in conjunction with the next COP.
The figure below illustrates three possible combinations of countries for meeting the 55 percent threshold. While a range of country combinations exist, based on the most recent emissions data communicated by countries to the UNFCCC, our analysis shows that the 55 percent threshold cannot be achieved without the acceptance of at least one of the top four emitting Parties, China, the United States, the European Union, or Russia. The timing for when each of these countries might join the Agreement depends on each of their unique domestic legal systems.
Taking the action needed to bring the Paris Agreement into force is an essential next step for countries to build on the momentum from COP21. If they do so quickly, countries can ensure that the critically important provisions and requirements of the Paris Agreement are fully put into motion.
Attracting more than 33,000 delegates, including over 80 government ministers and visitors from 170 countries, ADSW (Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week) is the Middle East’s largest gathering focused on addressing the interconnected challenges of energy and water security, climate change and sustainable development.
President Muhammadu Buhari (sixth from right) with other world leaders at the opening ceremony of the World Future Energy Summit 2016, as part of Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week (ADSW), at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (ADNEC), UAE
Commenting on the opening ceremony, President Muhammmed Buhari called for greater global cooperation against the devastating effect of climate change to avert disaster for the human race.
In his keynote speech, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed the need to turn political will into decisive action on renewable energy and sustainable development, as part of the fight against climate change. He praised the UAE’s leadership in sustaining the political momentum in the wake of the Paris Climate Agreement, reached in December, to achieve a better future for people across the world.
He told delegates: “We have a vision, (and) we have goals. There is also political will. We are the first generation with an opportunity to end poverty, but we are the last generation with a chance to combat climate change. Clean energy is the key to both of these tests. Sustainable energy is the thread that connects economic growth, social equity and our efforts to combat climate change.
“UAE and Masdar are a perfect example of the kind of public-private action that is needed. I congratulate Abu Dhabi on bringing together so many different partners including world leaders,” he added.
As the first high level global sustainable development event to take place since the Paris Climate Agreement, ADSW examined how to turn the ambitious goals of the Paris Climate Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development into practical and innovative policy, investment, technology and partnership solutions, with a focus on identifying actions that can be taken by both the public and private sectors.
In special remarks, delivered at the opening ceremony, President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico said: “One of the biggest challenges facing humanity is to have enough clean energy to meet future demand for energy. All nations of the world are vulnerable to the effects of climate change, and we therefore all have a duty to assume a global responsibility.
“Mexico is committed to the environment. We have made the decision to transition to less-polluting forms of fuel and to adopt renewable energy. Our belief is that it is possible to secure a new climate regime, without impeding economic and social progress. Abu Dhabi, and particularly Masdar, represent tangible examples of innovative environments aimed at sustainable economic and social progress.”
In his address to the opening ceremony, Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, UAE Minister of State and Chairman of Masdar, said: “We convene at a moment of unprecedented unity. The Paris Agreement, last month, marked the culmination of over a decade of challenging negotiations. Never before has the political will to address climate change and achieve sustainable development been so resolute. And never before have market forces aligned so closely with political choices.
“Achieving sustainable development and meeting the worlds’ growing demand for energy cannot be met by one source alone. All energy sources both traditional and new must work hand-in-hand. And that is why our leadership has prioritized economic and energy diversification as fundamental pillars to achieving sustainable development,” added Dr Al Jaber.
“There has never been a greater opportunity to make progress against the sustainable development goals and to create an economic potential that can drive sustained growth for future generations. Here, at the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week, we can start to build bridges between governments and businesses to create durable partnerships and to address the world’s most pressing challenges in sustainability. So let us be brave bold and ambitious. Let us use this week to maintain the momentum and to capitalize on this historic opportunity to lift the global economy and carve a practical pathway towards a sustainable future,” continued Dr. Al Jaber.
ADSW 2016 brought together thought leaders, policy makers and investors to address the challenges and opportunities of renewable energy and sustainable development through policy dialogue and action. ADSW 2016 promoted multilateral cooperation and bold decision making to accelerate the adoption of the sustainable solutions needed to realise the economic aspirations of future generations and to accommodate rapid global population growth.
The week also showcased the UAE’s leadership in addressing the critical issues defining the sustainability agenda, such as innovation and water security and reinforce Abu Dhabi’s position as an international energy and sustainability hub, capitalising on the clear economic opportunity of clean energy and water security. ADSW will also play a vital role in growing awareness, stimulating public debate and motivating action to address the vital regional issues of sustainability – energy efficiency, water conservation and waste recycling.
ADSW, which ended on Saturday, January 23rd 2016 is structured around four key pillars: policy, leadership, business and awareness and academic research.
Held as part of ADSW, the World Future Energy Summit (WFES) is the world’s foremost event dedicated to the advancement of renewable energy, energy efficiency and clean technology. The four-day conference programme addressed a range of key themes across clean energy. It will include sessions on the future of global energy in a low hydrocarbon price environment; financing the future of energy; new projects in the MENA solar sector and climate change and the UAE.
By Oluwatosin Kolawole (ClimateAid International), Abu Dhabi, UAE
The West African Science Service Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL) has been urged to key into Nigeria’s Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) as it begins the process of preparing a Research Agenda on Climate Change for the sub-region for the period spanning 2016 to 2020.
Environment Minister, Mrs Amina J. Mohammed (second right), with (from left) Professor Kehinde Ogunjobi, Director, WASCAL’s Graduate Studies Programme (GSP) in West Africa Climate System at the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA); Prof. Jerome Omotoso, Chairman, Nigerian National Consultation/Dialogue, WASCAL Research Agenda 2016; Environment Minister of State, Ibrahim Usman Jibril; and, Prof. Adeniyi Osuntogun, Vice-Chair of the WASCAL Governing Board, at the National Dialogue on WASCAL Climate Change Research Agenda…on Thursday, January 21, 2016
Environment Minister, Mrs Amina J. Mohammed, who made the disclosure on Thursday (January 21, 2016) in Abuja at the opening of a daylong stakeholders’ workshop on the WASCAL Research Agenda 2016, stressed that the agenda would not only bridge the gap between educational institutions and the government, but also with the industries.
While suggesting that outcome of the consultations should be communicated to her office for onward communication to Mr President, she disclosed that, as stated in the INDC, Nigeria aims to reduce emissions by 20% below BAU (business as usual) by 2030, rising to 45% with support from the international community.
“This has provided the needed national roadmap for sustainable development at all levels and in all key stakeholder constituencies,” the minister stated, even as she lamented that Nigeria is one of the most climate vulnerable countries in the world.
Her words: “By 2050, it could cost between six percent and 30 percent of its GDP. Nigerians are already profoundly aware of the damage caused by climate change impacts. The 2012 floods that killed several people and displaced more that 2.1 million are stack realities. These impacts are threatening the livelihoods of everyday Nigerians as well as aggravate regional conflicts such as depletion of the Lake Chad in the North East and the associated collapse of economic and institutional fabric, which has proved a breeding ground for terrorism.”
According to her, the current administration has come with a Change Agenda that is committed to an economic transformation which places inclusive, green growth at its heart.
“This change includes engaging our universities and research institutes in various fields to collaborate with the government to safeguard and improve on the lives of Nigerians. Mainstreaming climate change into all facets of our lives would indeed require the outputs from credible researches undertaken in these institutions. A successful government must fully develop its institutions to embark on research and innovations that focus on our national goals.”
Mrs Mohammed lauded WASCAL, saying that within a few years of its existence it (WASCAL) has created a niche for itself “and is willing to assist the nation develop its capacity through education and research, a must in this era of changing climate.”
She added: “With dire projections made popular by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) that fueled the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) to bring together the global community consistently for more than a decade, WASCAL, a collaboration of 10 member countries and Germany, is blazing the trial in enhancing the capacity of tertiary institutions and their partners in filling the much needed research gap in the sub-region.
“By encouraging young West Africans to fill the much-needed research gap that highlights the need for policy makers to collaborate with scientists, WASCAL has claimed a leadership role that should be supported by organisations like WMO (World Meteorological Organisation), UNDP (United Nations Development Programme), FAO (Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations) and indeed the international community.”
Dr Appolonia Okhimamhe, Director, WASCAL Masters Programme on Climate Change and Adapted Landuse (CC&LU) at the Federal University of Technology (FUT), Minna, Niger State, at the Dialogue
Prof. Adeniyi Osuntogun, Vice-Chair of the WASCAL Governing Board, highlighting WASCAL’s future emphasis, said that a core area is to improve the livelihoods of the population in the sub-region under climate change and climate variability (CC & CV). He added that the challenge to be met before all others is to improve the accuracy of the CC & CV predictions for the WASCAL mandate area.
He said: “Key also is the development of methods that permit the application of crop models at larger spatial areas to allow hydrological and agricultural decisions on various spatial and temporal scales. WASCAL envisages the identification of vulnerable people and areas, defined as those facing scarcity and degradation and transformation of natural resources and infrastructure.
“WASCAL intends developing a set of solutions to deal with the diversity of the socio-ecological systems. Therefore, WASCAL will generate knowledge and understanding on how to accelerate the implementation of solutions and on a wider scale by disseminating information on how land use is to be managed to support and sustain ecosystem services.”
In designing WASCAL research agenda for Nigeria, Prof. Osuntogun listed specific attention to be paid to include:
focusing on Nigeria priorities and challenges on climate change and related issues
integrating of research with capacity building activities
consistency with over all goal of WASCAL research agenda
upholding of key principles of WASCAL’s research agenda
According to him, financial support is a critical and an essential factor in the formulation, promotion and implementation of a national research agenda on Climate Change, Climate Variation, Adapted Land Use and other related issues.
Some participants at the Dialogue (Front row, L-R): Prof. Emmanuel Oladipo, Prof. Francis Adesina and Prof. Daniel Gwary
Prof. Jerome Omotoso, Chairman, Nigerian National Consultation/Dialogue, WASCAL Research Agenda 2016, identified goals of the consultative workshop as:
defining the crucial climate change challenges facing Nigeria
recommend the climate services and research needs for Nigeria to be included in the Research Agenda
determining the potential contribution of Nigeria to the implementation of WASCAL Research programme
identifying appropriate stakeholders to represent Nigeria at the regional consultation.
Prof. Emmanuel Oladipo of the University of Lagos, Akoka, in a keynote address submitted that WASCAL’s support to Nigeria for a science-based response to climate change challenge should be further strengthened by the establishment of a National Climate Change Commission or Agency that will be sustainably financed and strengthened to put the country in a good position to coherently address both mitigation and adaptation aspects of climate change challenge with global best approach and practices.
He added that products from the WASCAL initiative would constitute the crop of scientists in the Commission/Agency to provide much needed scientific information and data for decision making and help promote science-practice interactions for effective climate change adaptation.
“By readily absorbing many of the WASCAL-produced scientists in the Commission/Agency, the young men and women graduates will be largely assured of post qualification employment, which should in turn encourage many more to get involved – a path towards sustainability of the initiative,” he added.
Director-General/CEO, Nigeria Meteorological Agency (NiMet), Dr Anthony Anuforom, disclosed in a goodwill message that climate change is already a reality in the country, and that the conventional methods for multi-sectoral approach to combat the challenges may require redirection.
According to him, the need for actions on mitigation and adaptation built around local resources, knowledge and innovations is very imperative.
He further underlined the need for more research activities on: climate and weather extreme events; regional climate scenario for impact assessments; key climate change impacts on biodiversity in Nigeria; terrestrial carbon dynamics; and, sectoral vulnerability, impacts and adaptation to climate change in the country.
Dr Anuforom said: “Nigeria holds an immense mitigation and adaptation potential in the context of climate change that has the potential to improve rural and urban livelihoods and address issues related to ecology.”
Professor Kehinde Ogunjobi, Director, WASCAL’s Graduate Studies Programme (GSP) in West Africa Climate System at the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA) in Ondo State, described WASCAL as a regional centre for capacity building in climate change across West Africa. He added that WASCAL is also designed to help tackle challenges of climate change thereby enhancing resilience of human and environmental system to climate change and variability. The WASCAL programme is being funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
His words: “It is a great privilege that Nigeria is the only West African country having two WASCAL programmes – one at FUTA for Ph. D and at the Federal University of Technology (FUT), Minna for M. Sc degree.”
Countries under the WASCAL programme include Nigeria, Benin Republic, Niger Republic, Togo, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, The Gambia and Ghana.
The dialogue was organised by FUTA, FUT Minna, and Federal Ministry of Environment, Abuja.
Director, WASCAL Masters Programme on Climate Change and Adapted Landuse (CC&ALU) at FUT Minna, Dr Appolonia Okhimamhe, in a welcome address, stated that the research-focused centre is designed to help tackle severe challenges posed by climate change and thereby enhance resilience of human and environmental systems to climate change and increased variability.
“It does so by strengthening the research infrastructure and capacity in West Africa related to climate change and by pooling the expertise of 10 West African countries and Germany,” added Dr Okhimamhe, an Associate Professor of Geography and Head of the Department of Geography.
The Guild of Corporate Online Publishers (GOCOP) on Sunday described as unfortunate and ridiculous a statement credited to members of the Online Publishers Association of Nigeria (OPAN) with respect to the meeting held on Friday between the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, and online publishers in Lagos.
Musikilu Mojeed, Managing Editor of Premium Times and Acting President of GOCOP
Besides, GOCOP decried a deliberate attempt by OPAN to distort facts relating to its formation.
It further expressed shock at the orchestrated campaign aimed at dragging the name of the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, a thoroughbred professional, in the mud by a group it described as charlatans who have taken their deceit of being professional journalists too far.
GOCOP made its position known in a statement by its Acting President, Musikilu Mojeed; General Secretary, Dotun Oladipo; and Publicity Secretary, Olumide Iyanda.
It said not all members of OPAN can be described as professional journalists.
Rather, it said many of those who make up the organisation are people who worked on the fringes in media houses and have taken to online journalism principally as tool for blackmail and extortion of money.
It said this is even reflected in the membership of the association’s Board of Trustees, which is made up of a columnist with The Guardian and former Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to former President Goodluck Jonathan, Dr. Reuben Abati; some unknown lawyers; engineers; and Indians.
GOCOP said the statement credited to OPAN was clearly attention seeking and part of the carefully planned strategies to embarrass the current government and blackmail it into giving it undeserved recognition.
It said this is more so that OPAN, especially its leadership, is made up of people with questionable characters.
The statement said: “These are people who have spent months and days in Kirikiri Prisons in Lagos State and the dungeon of the Department of State Services for attempt to blackmail and extort money from eminent Nigerians, including prominent businessman, Femi Otedola; and a former Governor of Niger State, Dr. Babangida Aliyu.
“These are people who did not work for a single day as professional journalists, but as marketers, personal assistants and cameramen in media houses.”
Recalling the early days of the formation of GOCOP, the statement said the leadership of the online organisation, made up of seasoned journalists, with many boasting of over 25 years’ experience and rising to become Editors and Desk Heads of renowned newspapers, became aware of the “existence” of OPAN after it made moves to register with the Corporate Affairs Commission.
It recalled that a team of its officials, made up of a former President, Malachy Agbo, who is now the Chairman of Igbo-Etiti Local Government Area of Enugu State, and Oladipo, met with the so-called President of OPAN, Olufemi Awoyemi, in his office in Lagos State to see how the emerging group could fuse into the existing one.
However, the GOCOP group came out shell shocked with the revelations from the meeting.
Awoyemi said OPAN was formed and registered four years before the meeting but that they had kept its existence only to the members, who were less than five, with majority of them based outside the country.
He equally gave part of the terms for fusing as the repayment of the registration fee of the association, which he said would be deducted first from any money made by the association before members could begin to benefit financially.
When asked how much the registration fee was, Awoyemi said OPAN was registered in 2001 in the United Kingdom with £65,000 (Sixty-five thousand pounds).
At this point, Agbo told Awoyemi that the emerging body was not intended to be a money making association but a peer review gathering that would leverage on the experience of its members to bring sanity to online journalism.
After the meeting, OPAN members, working in concert with Abati, who deployed the powers of the Presidency, frustrated efforts to register the new body, with security agents threatening the leadership of the emerging body.
What was most curious, according to GOCOP, was that the initial name sent to the CAC, the Nigerian Online Publishers Association, was endorsed and granted registration, with the certificate of registration issued.
A few weeks after, CAC wrote NOPA claiming that it registered the association in error as OPAN was already in existence.
It took a long battle for CAC to agree to the name GOCOP.
The name was even suggested to the online publishers by CAC.
And this came amid threat of heading to the law court to challenge the CAC.
It also took OPAN, which claimed it was registered in 2001, over 14 years to formally launch the association.
OPAN was launched about a month after GOCOP did its own formal launch in 2015, which was attended by the likes of a former Chairman of The Punch titles, Chief Ajibola Ogunsola; the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Yakubu Dogara, represented the Chairman of the House Committee on Information, Alhaji Abdulrasak Namdas; the Founder of Zinox, Leo Stanley Eke, who delivered the keynote address; the Director General of the Debt Management Office, Dr. Abraham Nwankwo; and Adesina.
The statement by Mojeed, Oladipo and Iyanda said most members of GOCOP belong to the elite group of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, while none of those in OPAN qualifies to belong to any journalism association in the country, including the Nigerian Union of Journalists.
It added: “In mentioning a Special Adviser in the Presidency in their statement, by which we know they are referring to the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, OPAN is only seeking to drag a man of integrity, who insisted throughout the years OPAN had the backing of Abati that the right thing be done, into a needless controversy.
“There is no one who does not know that Mr. Adesina is a thoroughbred professional who will not stand by impostors and never-do-goods.
“And for the records, Adesina, being a concerned stakeholder and then President of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, had been a strong pillar of support for GOCOP right from its formative stage. At that time, he agreed to be a member of the Board of Trustees of GOCOP. This was even when he had no inkling he was going to emerge the presidential spokesman.
“So also do we know that the choice of those who attended the meeting with Alhaji Lai Mohammed was carefully thought through and not men of doubtful standings who have spent days and months behind bars for failed attempts to blackmail.
“While we do not query anyone’s right of association, our stand still remains as an association: no person of doubtful character will be allowed to be a member of GOCOP. Only thoroughbred professionals and people of integrity. Members of OPAN have a right of association, but they should remain within their confines and not cast aspersion on others who have devoted their lives to making a name for themselves in journalism and are professionals in the real sense of the word.
“And thoroughbred professionals indeed abound in GOCOP, with most of the publishers having worked at the highest levels in publications such as Thisday, Punch, Tribune, Newswatch, Tell, The News, The Nation, Nigerian Compass, New Telegraph, Independent Newspapers and Champion as Editors.
“We do not intend going beyond this for now as documents in our possession will be made available to the public on the atrocities of these charlatans if they push their luck any further.
“Our aim is to professionalise the practice of online journalism and not engage in blackmail, which has given journalism a bad name in the country.”
Against the background of controversy surrounding the MKO Abiola International Airport, Ido-Osun in Osun State, the consultant engineer to project, Wemimo Adebajo, has revealed that the airport when completed will rank among airports with the longest runways in Nigeria.
An impression of the MKO Abiola International Airport, Ido-Osun in Osun State
Adebajo, an engineer, stated recently during an inspection tour of facilities at the airport with journalists that the present site of the airport was the first place where aviation activities took place in the whole of West Africa.
The consultant, speaking on the percentage of work done at the airport, noted that government, having spent N2.7 billion out of the revised total cost of N11 billion for the project, had so far executed work to about 25 percent completion.
He added that the West African Frontier Force was lifted from the Ido-Osun aerodrome, the present site of the MKO international Airport project during the World War II, hence the conscious effort by the state to make it the best in Nigeria, if not in Africa.
He told journalists that the tour of the facilities became germane to allow journalists be adequately informed about the magnitude of the work done in order to situate the criticisms of the opposition in their proper context.
According to the consultant, the runway of the airport waiting to be laid with 500 mm asphalt is 3.5 kilometre in length, 12.3 metres excavation and re-filling with laterite. He added that both sides of the runway are equipped with water pipes, which will be the first of its kind in Nigeria.
He explained that, with such a feature, the airport would have been equipped with facilities that will make emergency fire fighting readily available near the runway in case of any emergency landing or fire outbreaks.
He pointed out that though the runway has not been completed, but in case of an emergency, the runway at its present state can be used by any pilot to land an aircraft at the MKO Abiola International Airport.
“Still more to be done, I believe the airport is good for the state. The main delay right now is a question of funding and the state is seeking ways on how to make it available.
“We are approaching the Federal government for 50 percent of cost of building the airport which is Federal Government policy, right now. What the contractor is doing is site maintenance so as to ensure that when work resumes there won’t be any case of deterioration of the huge work that had already been done here.” The Airport Consultant stressed.
Adebajo also added that the Control Tower nearing completion is at the third floor of four floors, and sitting on a foundation of an excavated ground of nine metres.
He said, “A lot of work has been done, and as we go round, you will see the control tower which we have built and it is almost completed. You will see the terminal building built to the foundation, the airport fire station has reached the stage of roofing.
“The runway is going to take about 60 percent of the cost of any airport project, a lot of work has been done on the runway, there are about 8 streams in the path of the runway. It therefore became necessary to excavate and build box covets so that the water in the stream will flow unhindered under the runway.”
He explained that the essence of the facility tour of the airport with Journalists was to allow people know what the state is doing at the airport and not just respond to allegations.
“I think the state government is trying to make sure that the press, the people of the state and Nigeria as a whole are briefed on what they have actually been doing. If it was just to respond to some political allegations, you will be talking to a politician, not a technocrat like myself.
“I have actually read in the newspaper that the contract has been inflated to N15.5 billion which is not true, I have just told you it is N11 billion and if you compare this with every other airport in Nigeria, you will realise that the cost of this one is cheap”.
The consultant engineer confirmed to journalists that the airport project predated the Rauf Aregbesola administration stating that the project had since 2010 been reviewed to over N7.5 billion even before the coming of the Aregbesola administration.
In an earlier statement issued by the government, Director, Bureau of Communication and Strategy, Semiu Okanlawon, had debunked insinuation of contract inflation, saying considering exchange rate factors, and the fact that the scope of the project was reviewed to make the airport more sophisticated than earlier projected, allegation of inflation was mischievous and misplaced.
