Biodun Oladunjoye
Recall that on Monday September 23, President Muhammadu Buhari participated alongside other world leaders at the United Nations Climate Action Summit 2019.
Since then, we have seen conversations on Twitter doing what Twitter allows many people to spend their time on: getting things horribly wrong and at the same time focusing on the wrong things, while completely eclipsing the real intended message.
This is the background to Nigeria’s commitment to climate action, under the Buhari administration.
The Climate Action Summit was convened by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, to provide an opportunity for world leaders to, “come to New York armed with concrete, realistic plans to enhance their nationally determined contributions to climate change by 2020, in line to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 45% over the next decade, and to net zero emissions by 2050.”
The theme of President Buhari’s panel was, “Towards a Resilient Future” — with the rider: “Announcement of plans to mainstream climate risk in decision making.”
So, note that the goal of the panel was to elicit ‘announcements’ from the panelists on behalf of their respective countries: Fiji, Nigeria, Netherlands, the Bank of England, etc.
In other words, panelists were billed to deliver remarks announcing their country or organisation plans to build a resilient, climate-sensitive future.
To address the theme of the event, President Buhari chose to deliver prepared remarks.
And the moderator’s question, was, in keeping with the theme: “President Buhari, Nigeria has a very young population; perhaps you might highlight what a pathway for a resilient future looks like?”
The President did exactly that, in his prepared remarks, over the next few minutes, highlighting what a “resilient future” will look like in Nigeria — by focusing on the administration’s policies (the ones already being implemented, like the green bonds, and the ones set for implementation, like the new tree-planting campaign, and the energy mix target).
His prepared remarks were wholly in alignment with the theme of the Panel event, and the question he was asked.
Keep in mind that as panels often work, the moderator’s question was meant to usher him to take the stage, and share his remarks.
As a panelist it was up to him to choose to respond ex tempore, or to go the ‘prepared remarks way.’
He chose the prepared remarks way. And most importantly, he touched on the issues which is mainstreaming climate action for the future and for the young people of Nigeria.
The only story here, for all serious minded people, is what he said, and what it means for the future and for the young people of Nigeria. His remarks read in parts:
“I share the sentiment expressed by the Secretary-General that the world is on the verge of climate catastrophe. Undeniably, Climate Change is a human-induced phenomenon.
“In the water sector, Nigeria will issue a green bond for irrigation and construct multi-purpose dams for power, irrigation and water supply, adding: “We will strengthen solid and liquid waste management systems to attract more private sector investors.
“We will mobilize Nigerian youths towards planting 25 million trees to enhance Nigeria’s carbon sink.
“Specifically, Nigeria is progressively working to realize 30 percent energy efficiency and renewable energy mix by 2030.
“Furthermore, the federal government has commenced the implementation of the hydrocarbon pollution remediation programme in Ogoniland, to recover the carbon sink potential of the mangrove ecosystem of the one thousand square kilometers (1,000 KM2) polluted site in the affected area.
“Finally, permit me to add that the forty million citizens in the Lake Chad area expect this Summit to take into consideration their concerns. They anticipate that the outcomes of this meeting would include solutions to address the Climate Change impact in the Lake Chad area.”
We believe that the important things for young people of Nigeria to do now should be around holding the government to account on these ‘announcement’ and promises, and ensuring they are fulfilled and delivered in a timely manner.
One of the most exciting thing should be the tree-planting campaign.
Ethiopia for example recently set a world record on that account — perhaps Nigeria’s young people might even be able to pressure the government into scaling up the ambitions of our own planned tree-planting campaign.
Therefore the online hysteria is completely unnecessary.