Presidential-elect Bola Tinubu
By Philip Ibitoye
The world is currently in a climate emergency, and Nigeria is not exempted from the devastating effects of this crisis. Recently, Nigeria experienced its worst flooding disaster in more than ten years. The flooding, attributed to climate change, killed more than 600 people and affected more than two million Nigerians. Interestingly, experts have asked people in flood-prone areas to brace up for worse next year.
So, Nigeria can no longer feign ignorance whenever there are conversations around climate change, considering that the effects are hitting home. It’s no surprise that the 2023 presidential candidates have been fielding questions about their plans to deal with the situation.
On Monday, October 17, 2022, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, fielded questions at the Arewa Interactive Committee in Kaduna. And he was asked what he would do about climate change which has triggered flooding across the country. Mr. Tinubu suggested that there is little that developing countries like Nigeria can do to combat climate change.
“We are a poor nation. They say firewood is not for fetching. They say we need to plant more trees, and they are not giving us money,” he said, adding, “We need to tell the West, if you don’t guarantee our finances and work with us to stop this, we are not going to comply with your climate change.”
According to Mr. Tinubu, climate change is “a question of how do you prevent a church rat from eating poisoned holy communion. That’s the way.” The APC presidential candidate used the opportunity to address the hypocrisy of the Western nations, who have continually called for African nations to move away from fossil fuel production.
That’s an interesting call considering that the rich countries in the West are the biggest contributors to climate change. The top 10 carbon polluters are China, the United States, India, Russia, Japan, Germany, Iran, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia. Nigeria is even nowhere near the top 20 and the biggest polluters, like the US, tell us to commit to net zero carbon emissions. Blatant hypocrisy!
Of course, all countries must work together to save the planet, but you can’t keep benefitting from pollution while asking poorer countries to avoid the “poisoned holy communion.” President Muhammadu Buhari said as much in an Op-ed he published in the Washington Post on November 10, 2022.
President Muhammadu Buhari
President Buhari forcefully called out the West’s hypocrisy in the scathing piece. He argued that Africa is the continent worst affected by climate change despite contributing the least to it. He also slammed the West’s unresponsiveness to helping clean up the mess they’ve made.
“Many of my peers are frustrated with Western hypocrisy and its inability to take responsibility. Governments have repeatedly failed to meet their commitments to the $100 billion fund for climate adaptation and mitigation in the developing world — for the mess their own industries caused,” the Nigerian leader wrote. He added that even though the agenda of the recent COP27 climate summit in Egypt noted the need for compensation for loss and damage, the West had mostly met the demand with silence.
Nearly two weeks later, that silence transformed into murmurs as Western negotiators appeared poised to do something to help poor and disadvantaged countries. Finally! At the end of the COP27 summit on Sunday, November 20, 2022, nearly 200 countries agreed to establish a “loss and damage” fund aimed at helping vulnerable countries cope with climate disasters.
Although climate experts celebrated the win, they noted the uncertainty going forward. “This loss and damage fund will be a lifeline for poor families whose houses are destroyed, farmers whose fields are ruined, and islanders forced from their ancestral homes,” World Resources Institute CEO Ani Dasgupta said, adding that, “At the same time, developing countries are leaving Egypt without clear assurances about how the loss and damage fund will be overseen.”
Clearly, more needs to be done as there are no guarantees that the West will follow through on its agreement to fund climate disaster response in vulnerable countries like Nigeria. Nevertheless, it’s encouraging that the silence has disappeared, and Western stakeholders are finally listening to the cries of struggling countries like Nigeria.
No doubt, Mr. Tinubu was wrong to describe the climate change crisis as “your [West’s] climate change,” considering that it’s everyone’s climate change, as the recent flooding in Nigeria suggests. However, the APC presidential candidate was correct in calling out the hypocrisy of the rich Western countries that would not help and still not get out of the way.
Finally, the recent agreement at COP27 to fund vulnerable countries’ climate disaster response justifies Mr. Tinubu’s call for the West to support Nigeria’s finances and work with the country to combat the raging climate crisis.
Philip Ibitoye writes for Eko Hot Blog. This media platform reserves all rights to this article.
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