This year’s Conference of Parties on Climate Change which is the 29th in the series, tagged COP29, took place in Baku, the capital of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The conference, which had as its theme “Climate Finance”, was held from November 11 to 22, 2024.
Prior to the conference, there was an understanding that to limit global warming to a desirable 1.5 degrees centigrade, there was an urgent need to assist developing countries with investment in funding climate action. This includes the phasing out of fossil fuel usage and increasing renewable energy and addressing non-carbon-dioxide emissions. The required funding was to foster green innovation.
Despite all these pledges, the trillions of dollars in funding requested by developing countries to transit into new cleaner and safer energy sources were not met. The 300 billion dollars that was pledged by donors fell far short of what was required. This development elicited much disappointment at the conference. This indicates that the desired goal of tackling the effect of climate change in the world will certainly be a difficult task.
What was palpably clear was that though there were reiterations about commitment to limiting emissions that lead to climate change in the world, there was no consensus on how this can be achieved by the countries that attended the conference.
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First, the abiding difference between the developed countries and developing countries on the issue of protocols on climate changes was all too clear. Some of the developed countries that are the major culprits on the issue have refused outright to observe the protocols. They anchor their refusal on the need to protect their national interests, which they say they cannot sacrifice even if this goes against the need to stop emissions that lead to climate change. With the election of Donald Trump in America, who is an avowed opponent of the climate change protocols, we can even expect more hostility and reticence on the part of America on the issue.
Yet, the same countries are putting pressure on developing nations not to follow the same path in return for financial and technical assistance to transition from the use of fossil fuels to renewable, green energy. But as we have seen from the Baku conference, this has proved hollow as the developed countries have not fulfilled their pledges to help in this endeavour.
Another thorny issue was the refusal of China and India to agree to be reclassified as developed countries despite their tremendous development and transformation over the years. China in particular has grown so tremendously that it is now the second largest economy in the world after the United States of America. The refusal by China to be reclassified as a developed country is obvious because its burgeoning economy and industries rely a lot on fossil fuel for energy. Indeed, China is recorded as one of the worst culprits in the emission of fossil fuels by its industries, thereby contributing a lot to global climate change.
But more fundamentally, the refusal of China and India to be reclassified as developed countries is one of the reasons why the expected financial and technical assistance to developing countries have been stymied. Developed countries seem reluctant to fully contribute because they consider that it is incongruous that huge economies like China and India should instead of receiving assistance, lead in providing same as they both have the eminent capacities of doing so.
For Nigeria, the dilemma is that while we certainly need the financial and technical assistance to transit from the use of fossil fuels as we are doing presently, we must however exercise caution in our decision on this issue. Our overwhelming reliance on this energy source cannot be overturned overnight as we lack the technology to enable us to transit rapidly into the use of non-renewable energy sources. In this regard, circumstances compellingly require that, like others, we must also consider our overarching national interest on this matter. We must not be carried away by the allure and pledges of financial and technical assistance that may not come or at best trickle in so little as to make no difference in the long run. What we need to do is to strike a balance in the requirements of the climate change protocols and our needs as a country. We should identify and embark on constructive engagements with countries that can assist us in research and developing the technologies that will make us gradually adopt renewable energy alternatives alongside fossil energy sources that we now use. This should be without prejudice to the COP, of which we are a signatory and a participant.
The lessons of the COP, especially the COP29 which Nigeria attended, is that we must think out of the box like other countries are doing in their choice and application of energy alternatives in the country. We must also learn to look inwards for solutions to the energy needs which best suit our circumstances in our quest for development and a clean and healthy environment, both locally and globally.
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