Despite directly impacting our communities, health and livelihood, climate-related reports usually take a back seat to dominant news beats like politics and business. Climate Watch aims to ensure you never miss important stories on climate change and actions being taken towards limiting its impact.
Here is a round-up of last week’s climate stories:
- Sameh Shoukry, Egyptian minister of foreign affairs and COP27 president-designate, said the country is ready to host the climate conference scheduled for November 6 to 18. With over 30,000 delegates registered, Shoukry said the COP27 presidency is doing “our utmost to create a conducive environment for successful negotiations and ambitious, credible and concrete outcomes.” He said he hopes the international community will rise to the occasion and ensure a successful and impactful COP27, adding that “we will set the scene in which we hope that all state and non-state actors will come together with a collaborative and constructive mindset to deliver on climate action”.
- Ahead of COP27, civil society organisations (CSOs) have called on delegates to examine Nigeria’s climate situation and make decisions that will benefit the country. During a green ball walk for climate over the weekend, Aderonke Oguleye-Bello, executive director of Female Advocacy Mentoring Empowerment (FAME) Foundation, said Nigeria is highly impacted by climate change and it will be right if actions are taken to improve the climatic and environmental situation. She also asked the presidential candidates to prioritise climate change in their manifesto ahead of the 2023 elections. She added: “We also call for a new approach to implementing climate policies into practice for inclusivity and sustainability. The need to prevent self-defeating austerity, national contexts and the promotions of government and public cooperation in achieving our environmental goals must all be considered in policy initiatives.”
- Sunday Jackson, executive secretary of the Abia State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), said so far, up to 21 persons have died as a result of flooding in the state. While receiving some relief materials from the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) last week, Jackson said the assistance will help cushion the effects of the disaster. Read more here.
- Despite strategies to reduce gas emissions globally, the United Nations (UN) has said the plans submitted by most countries are still not ambitious enough to tackle climate change. Giving the warning in a report published by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the body said the efforts to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees celsius by the end of the century have failed. It added that the current combined Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are leading to at least 2.5 degrees of warming. Find out more here.
- As the floods in Nigeria begin to recede, the federal government has said up to 154 locations, as well as transportation infrastructure worth N80 billion, have been affected. Babatunde Fashola, minister of works and housing, said the flooding is not peculiar to Nigeria, but its impacts were exacerbated by the fact that people did not heed the early warning. He added that it is the responsibility of state and local governments to ensure effective town planning to forestall these types of challenges. Read here.
- Meanwhile, Femi Falana, human rights advocate, has asked the federal government to commence an investigation into the management of the ecological fund. Expressing concern over the impact of recent flooding across communities, Falana said it is wrong for the federal government to ask citizens to hold state governments to account in the event of a national disaster. He said the federal government should instead submit a petition to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for the investigation of the alleged mismanagement of the ecological fund which would have been useful for tackling flood disasters. Read more here.
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