Segun Oguns

In closing the wailings of the year 2023, the Nigerian working people were confronted with yet another lavishness of President Bola Tinubu’s regime. As if the N2.176 trillion supplementary budget signed in the early week of November 2023 did not receive enough noise and outcries from the mass of the working people, the wastage of over N2.7 billion spent on about 1,411 sponsored delegates to the 28th meeting of the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC COP 28) was not as well excluded from public outcry and criticisms. Arising as part of the questions that follow the numerous criticisms of Nigeria’s 1411 delegates are the critical economic and socio-economic indices that inform President Tinubu’s delegation. Again, it is also not out of place to ask: what do Nigeria benefit from the outcomes of COP 28?

In recent times, environmental events across every part of the world have been linked to the precarious and obvious Climate change scenarios. These extreme weather events range from flooding, desert encroachment, wildfires, earthquakes, tsunamis, disease outbreaks, and irregular rainfalls that sometimes wash away farmlands and increase sea levels. Scientists across various walks of life have simply linked all these extreme events to Climate change. In fact, the global rise in atmospheric temperature that has led to the increase in intense heating cannot in any way be dissociated from climate change scenarios. This Climate change event has scientifically been linked to anthropogenic causes ranging from man-made agricultural practices that distort soil and land formations, explorations of the Oil and Gas sector, including the criminal activity of gas flaring that depletes the Ozone layer, which further intensifies the global rise in atmospheric temperature to about 2 degrees.

Global temperature will rise beyond 2 degrees. This is based on the recent scientific publications of the Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Climate Change (IPCC). According to the Climate Change scientists in the IPCC, for the world to be safe, global temperature must be kept at a level not above 1.5 degrees, as adopted in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

However, while the world leaders and parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change were preparing for their 28th meeting in the United Arab Emirates, Dubai, Climate change scientists are already drumming the warning drums of intending catastrophes that may collapse the Planet Earth at no distant time. Scientifically, it was projected that the global temperature had risen far above and exceeded the limit far above the pre-industrial levels. The projection also included the dire need to reverse the trend and end fossil fuel production at no distant time. 

The noise of impending climate crises accumulated in the pressures and eagerness that both climate change scientists and activists took into the COP 28 meetings in Dubai. This pressure includes the threat of cutting carbon emissions, Climate adaptation, Carbon markets and carbon credits, Climate finance, and energy transition pathways. Climate crises are more obvious in African communities as we have experienced various tragedies of extreme weather events, most especially flooding arising from sea level rise, environmental pollution leading to disturbances of our natural ecosystems and threats to human survival arising from oil and gas exploration in African communities. These environmental crises have become so obvious and threatening that world leaders went to COP 28 with no choice but to debate ending fossil fuels or gradually phasing out fossil fuels. 

Also to add is the problem of Climate imperialism in African countries. As the Euro-American coalition goes to COP 28, the African countries had an earlier African Climate Change Summit in Nairobi, which was to examine the possibility and importance of a Pan-African response to climate change mitigation and adaptation in African countries. Unfortunately, the inter-connectivity between the African rulers and the Euro-American coalitions became a subject of issues and mitigating Climate change in African countries became a surge of responsibilities placed on both Europe and Americans who have exploited Africans of their natural capital and consequentially caused the prevailing environmental pollution and existing climate change scenarios.

For instance, the exploration of Oil and Gas resources is still very much within the colonial arrangement of resource exploitation and politics of domination to subjugate Africans under continuous capitalist rule that has forced the Euro-American coalition to fund Climate change mitigation and adaptation in African countries nearly impossible. This is evident in the debate surrounding the loss and damage fund (popularly known as Climate finance) and the meagre amount voluntarily committed by the UK, the USA, Japan, China and Canada. In total, a sum of 725 million US Dollars was mobilized at COP 28 for the financing of the Loss and Damage Fund. Countries that donated include Canada, Denmark, European Union, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Spain, UAE, United Kingdom and the United States of America.

The UAE had committed $100m to the fund, a figure that Germany has matched. The UK pledged £40m to the fund and £20m for other funding arrangements for loss and damage. The US has committed $17m – a move that has been criticized for being insufficient – and Japan has committed $10m. Along with other backers, the total of the Loss and Damage Fund now exceeds $725m. 

Actually, funding the Loss and Damage finance scheme was made a voluntary contribution by the Euro-American coalitions! This goes much in interpreting to every one of us, most especially African countries, the unwillingness of the imperialist countries who have developed their countries from stolen and exploited natural capital from African countries. How on earth will their financial contribution to climate change mitigation in African countries be made voluntary? Even with the voluntary donations, the meagre amount from these developed countries is nowhere sufficient to mitigate the existing climate change scenarios in African communities across the board. So, what seems to be an achievement from the just concluded COP 28 is, in real-time, a far cry from providing real-time solutions to Climate change events in Africa. 

Going by the urgent need to mitigate Climate change events in Africa, Nigeria and other leagues of African countries have good reasons to be at COP 28. It also points out the importance of aligning African countries to the urgent warnings of impending climate crises and the need to establish partnerships both within and outside the continent. The commitment to net zero emission global policy, carbon markets, phasing out fossil fuel productions, and the energy transition pathways are the important global trends that Nigeria and other African countries must commit to and contribute to their achievement.

In the same vein, Nigeria’s participation should have been used as an opportunity to force developed countries’ commitment to climate finance and make sure that they are made to bear the burden of achieving these targets in African countries. With these purported roles that Nigeria could play, does that now justify the 1,411 delegates?

It is rather unfortunate that Nigeria’s participation, which should have turned out to be the major international outing for President Tinubu from the perspectives of his economic diplomacy, subsidy removal on fossil fuels and sovereignty affirmation, was marred with irretrievable criticism as the largest delegation from Africa; following the host country – UAE, and Brazil and China. Also in the top eleven list are Japan, Morocco, Turkey, France, Indonesia, India, and the USA.

Findings by Dataphyte show that among the top eleven countries with the most delegates (including the host), Nigeria has the lowest GDP per Capita. Dataphyte review shows that while the United States has the highest GDP per capita of $65,737, Nigeria has the lowest among the eleven countries, with $2,008. Morocco, the only African country in the top eleven countries with the highest delegation aside from Nigeria, has a GDP of $3460. In addition, Nigeria has the highest poverty rate, with 30.9 headcounts, meaning that of every 100 persons in the country, 30.9 percent are poor and live below $2.15 (N1,755) per day; yet, Nigeria was reported to have spent at least N2.7 billion on expenses relating to sponsoring delegates to the COP28. Dataphyte research shows that of the countries under review, Nigeria has the least tax revenue per capita, with $98. Turkiye, one of the top eleven countries with a high number of delegations to COP28, has the highest tax revenue per capita of $15,105, according to information from the World Bank.

COP28 is meant to help countries tackle climate change and bring up policies to that effect, including financial support for implementation. However, Data from the ND-GAIN shows that Nigeria, among the eleven countries with the largest delegation, is the least prepared for the adverse effects of Climate Change. In 2020, Nigeria’s readiness to tackle climate change stood at 0.251, while the most recent publication puts the figure at 0.256. However, our readiness metric of 0.256 is the least among the countries reviewed. This is evident in President Tinubu’s economic policy, most especially after his unpatriotic announcement of Fuel subsidy removal. In essence, COP 28 and previous COPs have provided the framework for countries to redirect money gained from subsidy removal to investment in alternative and renewable energy schemes.

Unfortunately, the money gained from Nigeria’s subsidy removal is being re-looted by the lackeys of the Nigerian ruling elites and the oil marketing thieves who keep crying foul of continuously increasing fuel pump prices. Nigeria’s refusal to key into the global energy transition pathway has also undermined the essence of Nigeria’s involvement in COP 28. Sectors such as our bad transportation system, poor agricultural sector that cannot guarantee secured food systems for Nigerians despite abundant fertile lands, and the possibility of large irrigation and dryland farming in Northern Nigeria, our corrupted oil and gas sector and collapsed power sector – all indicates Nigeria’s unpreparedness to mitigate Climate change scenarios.

Therefore, President Tinubu’s large delegation at COP 28 is a monumental waste of our public resources and an avenue to further use Nigerian collective resources to settle his political gladiators who see going to Dubai as a vacation. As reported by The Cable news reporter, less than 1% of the 1,411 are seen at COP 28 plenaries and side events, and most disappear into hotels and social gatherings in Dubai for the COP 28 party shows.