The Federal Government is counting its gains from COP28, after parties sought transition away from fossil fuels, operationalised loss and damage, mobilised more than $85billion in new financial commitments, which are crucial actions that will help to shape a better, cleaner world with greater equitable prosperity, writes CHINEDUM UWAEGBULAM.

Nigeria was on the path of history recently when the 28th Conference of Parties (COP28) concluded with 198 parties endorsing a landmark agreement “The UAE Consensus” that sets out an ambitious climate agenda to keep 1.5°C within reach.

Among other things, the UAE Consensus calls on parties to transition away from fossil fuels to reach net zero, encourages them to submit economy-wide Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), including a new specific target to triple renewables, double energy efficiency by 2030, and build momentum towards a new architecture for climate finance.

The consensus follows a year of inclusive diplomatic engagements and two weeks of intense negotiations, where parties agreed on the operationalisation of the loss and damage, totaling more than $700 million. The Green Climate Fund (GCF) received a boost to its second replenishment with six countries, with total pledges now standing at a record $12.8 billion from 31 countries.

Eight donor governments also announced new commitments to the Least Developed Countries Fund and Special Climate Change Fund totaling more than $174 million, while new pledges, totaling nearly $188 million were made to the Adaptation Fund. These financial pledges are far short of the trillions eventually needed to support developing countries with clean energy transitions, implementing their national climate plans and adaptation efforts.

Nigeria was not left out in the bargain, as the President Bola Tinubu-led delegation also made significant gains, which was enumerated by the Information Minister, Mohammed Idris.

Nigeria and Germany signed a performance agreement on the implementation of the Presidential Power Initiative (PPI) to improve electricity supply in the country.

Tinubu hosted a high-level meeting with stakeholders and investors on the Nigeria Carbon Market and the Electric Buses Rollout Programme, where the Nigeria Carbon Market Activation Plan, co-chaired by the Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Mr. Zacch Adedeji, and the Director-General of the National Council on Climate Change (NCCC), Dr. Dahiru Salisu, were in attendance.

Also, heads of several Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) entered into agreements with their counterparts in the UAE. For instance, the NNPC sealed two deals to commercialise the country’s Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) for domestic and international markets to ensure that the country earns the much-needed revenue from its abundant gas assets.

Moreover, after signing a strategic partnership agreement between themselves on research and development projects aimed at enhancing the quality, reliability, and affordability of rural electrification solutions, the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) and National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI), signed an MOU with Shenzhen Technology Development Company of China, through its subsidiary, Lemi Renewable Energy Limited. This agreement is targeted at the development and establishment of a $150 million Lithium Battery Manufacturing and Processing Factory in Nigeria.

Despite these achievements, delegates’ representation threw up a massive controversy. Unsurprisingly, the UAE has the largest-ever registered delegation of any country, with 4,409 badges. This was followed by Brazil with 3,081 and then China and Nigeria, who have both issued 1,411 badges. Other that followed in toe were Indonesia with 1,229, Japan with 1,067, and Turkey with 1,045.

Idris, however, countered the claim of an over-bloated delegation, saying that the country’s official delegation was 422 delegates, which is a far cry from the figure peddled at the summit.

If the figures released by the minister are anything to go, the country would have spent over N1, 644,423,014, comprising N1, 097, 200,000 for economy flight @ N2.6 million return tickets for each delegate, and N547, 223, 014 for accommodation @N1, 296, 737 for 13 nights per person, excluding feeding and other logistics on COP28.

The expenses are expected to be higher since some of the delegates are ministers and senior government officials, who have privileges of first class/business tickets, or luxury apartments.

For experts and civil society groups, Nigeria has not been taking advantage of its position as the largest economy in Africa, even as its approaches to COPs over the years have been questionable.

For the Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Nnimmo Bassey, the country’s delegation to Dubai was unduly large mainly because the COP was approached as a roadshow for investment drive judging from the number of memoranda of agreement signed at the Nigerian Pavilion during three COPs.

“Unfortunately, treating the COP as a trade fair misses the point of the multilateral space, which is primarily for serious negotiations. Side deals weaken the hands of vulnerable nations as they cannot vigorously confront the polluters with demands for justice over the resolution. This is why the COPs have weakened considerations of the Common But Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) principle and now operate on the NDCs- an approach that negates the requirements of binding emissions reduction by polluting nations, but allows for convenience as a major determinant of action.”

According to Bassey, Nigeria’s gains or losses at COP28 can best be assessed by looking at what turned out in favour of the African continent. “In that sense, we recall that Africa went to the COP28 primarily with the outcome of the African Climate Summit, which was held in Nairobi. The key expectations of the continent included the drive for sufficient finance for the needed energy transition and the operationalising of the Loss and Damage Fund.

“The leaders resolved to aim for ‘green development’, an oxymoron, and green industrialisation. They also went with the mindset of having bountiful critical green mineral reserves and vast swathes of lands and forests to serve as carbon sinks and to generate carbon credits.

“Those basic expectations are recipes for the entrenchment of green colonialism – an extractivist approach that benefits polluters and compounds the problems confronting the victims of climate change,” he said

He continued: “Nigeria’s position as a staunch defender of OPEC’s position not to agree to a fossil fuels phase-out was also not laudable. However, it can be said that with Nigeria’s government ‘gained’ from the COP outcome agreement to only transition from fossil fuels, while promoting unnamed transition energy resources, which will definitely include fossil gas.

“This specious gain will see Nigeria digging for more oil and gas for export, as is the trend across the continent. We note that over 85 per cent of the infrastructure on the continent is installed for exports showing that they are not extracted to meet the energy needs of the people on the continent.”

Bassey said that Nigeria needs a bottom-up national stock-take on voluntary actions to draw up what is needed to address the impacts at home, regionally, and globally. This should include scenarios for embarking on adaptation and mitigation measures with deep consideration of the complex roots of the crisis using both historical and current lenses.

“Nigeria must realise that the transition from fossil fuels has begun no matter what we may think. The days of fossil fuels are numbered. Rather than talk of decarbonising, the world will soon be speaking of depetrolising. Within the coming decades, the global North will halt the production of internal combustion engines and Africa risks becoming the cemetery for such automobiles,” he said.

He stated that the COP cannot be allowed to continue as a carbon trade fair where lands and forests are auctioned as carbon sinks to permit polluting nations and corporations to continue with reckless exploitation and neocolonial grabbing of resources.

For the Chairman of Nigeria Environment Study/Action Team (NEST), Prof. Chinedu Nwajiuba, the gains come in different forms. “Nigerians, working in and outside the country, various government and non-government activists involved with the subject of climate change and related matters, showcased what they have been doing. Interested parties at the global level interacted with participants at this level, and some partnerships and linkages were created.

“We have a new government and officials may have been interested in getting involved, acquiring some knowledge, exploring some of the promised financial resources, and such interests. Some international bodies and agencies are interested in implementing programmes and projects in Nigeria were able to establish relevant relationships with Nigeria-based partners. Most of these will usually imply financial inflows into the country.

“I also know of critical stakeholders, who should be at the COP but were not, while their peers in other countries were there. One of such is the universities. At COPs, most well-known universities from all over the world come to showcase their researches and inventions, and market such to investors, as well as meet with funders of researches and innovations. Nigeria’s universities have been missing on that,” said Nwajiuba, a former vice-chancellor of Alex Ekwueme Federal University, Ebonyi State.

He advised that Nigeria should always be at the COP because “we belong to the UN systems and signatory to all the relevant agreements. The government-funded delegates may not be as many as was reported in 2023, but certainly, the COP should not be what few Nigerians should attend. I want to see Nigerian universities and more youths attending.”

The Executive Secretary of HEDA Resource Centre, Sulaimon Arigbabu, said that Nigeria could gain much more from multilateral negotiations and opportunities. “The country is still not taking good advantage of many factors that could work for us, such as the number of our official delegations and unofficial participants.’’Our weight is not felt in the negotiations as much as could be,”

For many years, activists have been at the forefront of advocating that the Nigerian government should use its unlimited quota to enable the participation of many more Nigerians who could make positive input into the country’s general experience at the COPs or similar conferences. So, this year, what people termed as over-bloated delegations were citizens from the civil society, academia, faith, entertainment, and business communities, who took advantage of the government’s facilitation to attend the conference and pay their bills.

He called for the audit of official COP delegates. “From the over 422-man delegation that the FG claimed to have sponsored, how many of them are experts who are negotiating for us? What are their competencies? Who are they, and how were they selected? That process is not open, and these people are not known to stakeholders. Therefore, public accountability is difficult to achieve. There is still a lot of patronage and ambiguity about the selection process. The problem is not the size of our delegation. It is the lack of a strategic plan to maximise the benefits of such for the interest of the country,” Arigbabu said.

He said: “We must do internal stock-taking, knowledge and information sharing before the conferences. Currently, just one meeting hurriedly put together before the COP is ineffective. We need to know our negotiators; what are Nigeria’s positions on critical issues? We need to have better engagement and plan that every Nigerian participating at the COP, whether government sponsored or not, have a stake, can access guidance and information on the agenda promoted by Africa and Nigeria in particular.”