A team of climate change experts under the auspices of the Glasgow Action Team has demanded a change in action and composition of the leadership of the World Bank’s investment in fake/short term climate solutions like carbon capture and storage in Nigeria.
They spoke on Tuesday during a virtual meeting as part of activities commemorating of the 2022 World Habitat Day.
The trio of climate activists, Jonah Gbemre, Murphy Akiri and Jake Hess, who jointly addressed the virtual press conference, said it is important that the world sustained its call for system change at the World Bank, especially on climate change.
Daily Trust reports that the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP27, would hold from 6 to 18 November 2022 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.
According to them, this year’s World Habitat Day seeks to draw attention to the growing inequalities and vulnerabilities that have been exacerbated by the triple ‘C’ crises comprising COVID-19, Climate and Conflict, thus the need for the World Bank to move from rhetoric to action, and reform its climate policy.
“The World Bank’s failure to tackle climate change is the latest challenge where the Bank has come short and failed to deliver for low-income countries. Since the Paris Agreement, the World Bank has provided $12bn in direct project finance to fossil fuels projects in 35 countries, more than any other multilateral development bank.
“The figure does not include billions more in support of fossil fuels through financial intermediaries, the biggest culprit being the commercial lending arm of the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation (IFC).
“The false narrative that fossil fuels will bring prosperity is a harmful distraction from the actual demands of Global South citizens, especially Africans, who want clean, community owned energy,” they said.
They said the vast proportion of the World Bank’s lending and other programme portfolios remain immune from legal action, as does the IMF, meaning that its contradictions are not held accountable.
“For example, it continues to invest in fossil fuels which are driving climate change, at the same time as investing in trying to fix the problems caused by climate change, such as investing $10m into reversing degradation of Lake Chad,” they said.
“In Nigeria, a current major concern is that the Bank has announced funding for Carbon Capture and Storage, a controversial and unproven technology that claims to store carbon underground, to ‘help Nigeria reach its emissions targets’, despite criticisms that this techno-fix reinforces fossil fuel dependence.”
They recalled that in his speech at the last UN Climate talks, President Buhari announced that Nigeria would become net zero by 2060, saying “the government is looking for partners, technology, and finance to make cleaner and efficient use of all available resources for a more stable transition in energy markets”.
They also noted that Nigeria, as a major oil producer, wants to prolong the status quo as much as possible.
