On Sunday, November 6th, 2022, over 40,000 people from governments, civil societies, corporate organisations, and youth movements gathered to lend their voices to the climate fight and keep 1.5 degrees within reach at the Sharm El-Sheikh International Convention Center, Arab Republic of Egypt (Egypt) for the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27).
COP is an annual conference of parties where the world comes together to lend their voices to the climate fight and keep 1.5 degrees within reach. It is also a convening where global leaders lay out their plans on how to adapt to the impacts of a changing climate, and to make money available to deliver on these aims.
Even thorough COP has been happening since 1992 when representatives from 172 countries gathered in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), commonly called the Earth Summit.
It was at the summit that countries signed a treaty promising to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere and prevent dangerous changes to the climate. Almost every year since then, the parties to this agreement have met to talk about what still needs to be done.
Knowing that developing countries are only at the receiving end of climate disaster that comes with global warming, and not major contributor to GHG emissions, in 2009, At COP15 in Copenhagen, in terms of meaningful mitigation action and transparency of implementation, developed countries committed to the goal of mobilizing a total of $100 billion annually by 2020 to meet the needs of developing countries.
Finance was discussed in detail throughout the session and there was consensus on the need for more assistance to developing countries. This commitment led to what is now being popularly called “100 billion dollars climate finance”.
Parties at the conference specified that the finance would come from a wide variety of sources, public and private, bilateral and multilateral, including alternative sources of finance, but no clear structure on implementation was discussed.
Six years later, the climate finance goal was formally recognised by the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties at COP16 in Cancun. At COP21 in Paris, parties extended the $100 billion goals through 2025.
With clear timelines and financial benchmarks and clear evidence of loss and damage ravaging developing countries (Africa especially), findings showed there has been no year since climate finance was discussed at COP21 that promises to a certain amount of financial commitment have been fulfilled.
This development has disappointed many climate enthusiasts, many of whom are clamouring for increased financial commitments
At COP26, there was supposed to be a plan to make sure the $100 billion arrived but it emerged that wealthy countries are not able to deliver that promise until 2023. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimated that developed countries only mobilised $79.6 billion in climate finance in 2019.
COP26 also led to a resolution to institute a new negotiation to deliver on a new climate finance goal beyond 2025 – and the rules to make sure rich countries cannot avoid delivering the money.
Despite the failure of developed nations to deliver on the annual $100 billion climate fiance, at COP26, a number of countries also made financial commitments to support climate action – including a pledge of $50 million from the United States, $8.1 million by Canada, $116.4 million from the European Commission and $20.6 million from the UK, among others. In all, pledges got to about $356 million but a report in September 2022 said around 65% of the $356 million that was pledged in Glasgow, Scotland, last year remained outstanding.
In a recent research by Climate Policy Initiative (CPI), tracking climate finance flows in Africa is a very difficult task as it has a lot of methodological and data limitations issues.
The report revealed that sectors, project-level climate finance is particularly difficult to track because its processes are subject to security restrictions. Furthermore, there are methodological challenges in what is considered climate finance in energy-intensive and hard-to-scale industries.”
Beyond the $100 billion climate finance, research has shown that between 2020-2030, Africa will need USD 2.8 trillion to implement its Nationally Determined Contributions(NDCs) under the Paris agreement. In another statement by the Africa Group of Negotiators for COP27, developed countries must make provision of $1.3 billion annually to fund climate-related projects and schemes from 2025.
With clear evidence that developed countries have failed since 2009 to fulfil an annual payment of the $100 billion climate finance and the lack of a clear instrument to track what is meant for what, for who, it becomes difficult to track.
Carbon brief in an article in September 2022 noted that pledges are different from the actual delivery of finance. “While the former helps make headlines, the latter is where accountability lies. And close scrutiny is far from allowing a basis for praise”.
Analysts following the development said a successful COP27 for Africa is one where clear climate finance and effective mechanisms for consistent monitoring of the implementation of previous announcement is created. COP27 as the “implementation COP” must therefore deliver clear pathway for climate finance to flow into Africa.
Will Nigeria live up to its expectations?
Climate Action Tracker, an independent science-based assessment, says Nigeria is not ready to fully implement its climate actions.
“Nigeria has an ambitious 2030 renewable energy target, but implementation has been slow and it is not on track to meet this target. Its pandemic recovery package did include support for solar home systems, but much more action is needed here. Nigeria has one of the least reliable electricity grids and its citizens spend billions per year on generators,” it stated.
This assessment comes as climate change further heightens Nigeria’s challenges; such as poverty, unemployment, food insecurity, communal clashes and migration.
In the northern part of the country, climate change daily threatens lives and livelihoods. Climatic impacts such as desertification, deforestation, drought, and conflicts have left many impoverished.
Lagos, which is Nigeria’s commercial hub, experiences the impacts of coastal flooding and is vulnerable to a rise in sea levels, increased rainfall and storms.
Nigeria’s vulnerability to global warming and climate change is glaring. Although the country has made commendable commitments to reducing its carbon emissions and tackling the impacts of climate change, analysts and experts are wondering how the country intends to move forward.