The proposition by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on debt for climate is the way to go
The 27th Conference of Parties (COP27) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held last week in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. The single most important item on the agenda was the implementation of the Paris Agreement to keep the global average temperature rise within 1.5 degree Celsius. The United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres voiced his frustration at the non-implementation of the agreement. In his remark at the opening plenary, Guterres said, “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator. The clock is ticking. We are in the fight of our lives, and we are losing. Greenhouse gas emissions keep growing. Global temperatures keep rising and our planet is fast approaching a tipping point.”
Against the background that Nigeria has no definite position on climate change, the debt-for-climate swap deal proposition by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo would be a useful intervention to reduce debt burdens for developing countries while advancing the objectives of the international community. At various international fora, including in the United States, Osinbajo had argued that “debt for climate swaps is a type of debt swap where bilateral or multilateral debt is forgiven by creditors in exchange for a commitment by the debtor to use the outstanding debt service payments for national climate action programmes.”
In recent years, Nigeria has been ravaged by multiple climate-induced extreme weather events, particularly flooding that annually claim hundreds of lives while displacing millions. This has been partly attributed to global warming, which affects both developing and developed countries. But unlike the developing countries, developed countries have the finance and technologies to cope with the consequences of this rage of nature. Developing countries need financing, technology and support from developed countries for mitigation, adaptation and addressing loss and damage. This is where the proposed idea by Osinbajo becomes useful.
In his opinion piece contributed to Washington Post last week, President Muhammadu Buhari expressed his frustration and that of his African colleagues with what he described as Western hypocrisy on the issue of climate change. “Governments have repeatedly failed to meet their commitments to the $100 billion fund for climate adaptation and mitigation in the developing world — for the mess their own industries caused,” Buhari wrote. “According to the United Nations, Africa is the continent worst affected by climate change despite contributing the least to it. Even though the COP27’s agenda notes the need for compensation for loss and damages (as distinct from adaptation and mitigation funding), that demand has mostly been met with silence in the West.”
We understand the point being made by the president. At COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009, rich nations made a pledge to channel US$100 billion a year to less-wealthy nations by 2020, to help them adapt to climate change and mitigate further rises in temperature. Even when these nations contribute little or nothing to global warming, the developed countries are yet to honour that pledge. The Western countries, according to Buhari, are trying to play smart on climate change by their unwillingness to take politically difficult decisions that hurt domestically. “Instead, they move the problem offshore…Africa didn’t cause the mess, yet we pay the price.” That, the president added, should be the starting point for all negotiations.
It is good to gather annually to discuss and decide on the actions required to bring down greenhouse gas emissions known as ‘mitigation’, make adjustments to economic, social and ecological systems to cope with the impacts of climate change, known as ‘adaptation’, and reparations for impacts that are difficult to adapt to for vulnerable countries like Nigeria, known as ‘loss and damage’. But it is more productive to enunciate concrete actions. Osinbajo’s proposition should be Nigeria’s position.
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Western countries, according to Buhari, are trying to play smart on climate change by their unwillingness to take politically difficult decisions that hurt domestically
