Mkpoikana Udoma
Port Harcourt — The Health of Mother Earth Foundation, HOMEF, has expressed disappointment that the just-concluded Conference of the Parties, COP27, in Egypt ended with no clear cut efforts or call to phase out fossil fuels exploration and exploitation.
HOMEF explained that fossil fuels were responsible for wars, climate harms and human rights abuses, advising that funds invested in warfare should be channeled to funding the needed just energy transition and for tackling the manifestations of climate change.
Director of the foundation, Dr. Nnimmo Bassey, expressed concerns on the time wasted on non-solutions such as the promotion of unproven and risky technologies, including geoengineering, saying that COP27 ended without any significant shining light besides the ‘loss and damage’ proposal.
Bassey urged Nigeria and other African nations to realize that the 1.5degrees celsius temperature target set in the Paris Agreement was on track to be exceeded judging from the Emissions Gap Report issued by UNEP, noting that to close that gap, the world will ultimately exit the petroleum era.
assets by the coming decade, hence Africa cannot afford to be a stranded continent loaded with stranded fossil assets.
The environmentalist further said that 1.5 degrees Celsius temperature increase above pre-industrial levels will be disastrous for Africa as the continent has temperatures above global averages, warning that this reality makes taking climate caption more urgent for Africa.
He said: “The campaign for climate debt has been campaigned for by civil societies for years. This demand is in line with historical and current harms being suffered by vulnerable nations and regions due to climate change triggered by actions by industrialised nations.
“Rather than recognize and pay the climate debt, the COP had proposed a Green Climate Fund at COP15 and acceded to payments for Loss and Damage at COP27. Hopes for the recovery of damaged environment were shattered by the usual lack of seriousness in the discussions COP27 did not rise up to even the weak attempts to call it an African COP.
“The outcome confirmed that this was just another COP with nothing substantial in terms of reparations for centuries of harms and ongoing ones. COP27 could not be termed African COP because of its mere geographical location, as Africans could not attend due to diverse restrictions while the corridors of COP27 were filled with fossil fuels promoters who attended to block decisions that would rescue the world from the clutches of the industry.
“COP27 leaves vulnerable nations to contend with climate impacts without any serious help that can be counted as additionalities. Delaying action on Loss and Damage simply means tossing nations into more famine, fires, and floods. Climate change continues to be driven by development based on exploitation of peoples and the destruction of Nature made in the guise of fighting global warming.
HOMEF further said that the loss and damage agenda should not considered as charity but as reparations for centuries of ecocide and damaging activities.
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