Nigerian civil society organisations (CSOs), on the platform of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), have called on industrialised nations to pay up $8trillion dollars climate debt.
This follows the outcome of COP 29, which was held in Baku Azerbaijan between November 10 and 24 2024.
Nnimmo Bassey, executive director, HOMEF, in his remarks at a CSOs/Media parley in Abuja on Wednesday, said the debt is estimated at an annual rate of $5 trillion $8 trillion,
He noted that the payment will end the squabbles over climate finances whose targets are set but never pursued or met.
According to Bassey, “The so-called finance COP was shy of mentioning how much the rich polluting nations would contribute to help vulnerable nations adapt and build resilience to the scourge, noting that talks of loss and damage and other instruments of climate finance became largely muted.
“In their place emerged a contentious concept of New Collective Quantified Goals (NCQG) – a new mechanism requiring that everyone contributes to the finance pot in the same thought pattern that birthed the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), the hallmark of voluntary emissions reduction according to convenience.
“We recall that at COP15 in 2009 the pledge was to pay $10bn dollars yearly from 2010 to 2020 and raise that to $100bn from 2020. Those targets never materialised.”
He said the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) was presented as a means of raising funds needed to support mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage in developing and climate-vulnerable countries, found mostly in the Global South. The amount needed was put at a minimum of $1.3 trillion annually, although civil society analysts put the climate debt at $5 trillion -$8 trillion annually.
“COP 29 came up with a miserly $300 billion which would come into effect in 2035. It has also been estimated that the $300 billion would be worth just $175 billion by then using current inflationary trend,” he said.
They expressed the concern that even the promised $300 billion may come through innovative financial sources that include loans and would increase the already huge debt burdens of the poor countries.
Bassey noted that when the COP deferred the date for providing needed funds to 2035, there didn’t appear to be any consideration of the scale of the climate disasters that the world may be facing then.
“Climate finance can readily be raised by redirecting funds from military expenditure that saw rich nations spend up to $2.4 trillion in 2023. Halting fossil fuel subsidies and holding polluters accountable would raise more than $5 trillion annually. So, the problem is not a lack of cash, but a matter of priority,” he said.
The organisations also called on Nigeria and other African countries to place a ban on geoengineering experimentations, including solar radiation management, ocean fertilization, rock weathering and others.
“We denounce false solutions and market-based mechanisms that include carbon offset schemes, carbon removals and others.
The CSOs in their demands.”
They further called for community-led solutions to halt pollution at the source, noting thaat communities and nations that have kept fossil fuels in the ground should be recognized as climate champions and duly compensated for such actions.
“We also demand an urgent clean up of areas polluted by fossil fuel exploitation and provision of clean renewable energy to energy poor communities, while urging that countries who do not support fossil fuels phase out should be barred from hosting the COP, and polluters should not be kept out of the COP.”
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