Nigeria’s Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, has promised to get the nation a part of the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s (IPU) $30billion climate change budget. The Senate President is an executive member of the union and plans to take this up during the IPU’s session at the upcoming 28th Conference of Parties (COP) in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE). He made this known at the senate complex Abuja during interactions with the leadership of the Nigerian Ecological Project Office (EPO) on Thursday.
Mr Akpabio lamented the flooding that has destroyed many parts of the country in recent years due to climate change. He also regretted the annual flooding besieging his constituent South South region and parts of the South West as a result of maintenance activities on Cameroon’s dam. According to him, Government would make more efforts to tackle climate change issues to reduce the incidences of internally displaced persons (IDPs).
The Permanent Secretary of EPO, Shehu Ibrahim, bemoaned the agency’s insufficient monthly fund allocation of N2billion-N3billion. He highlighted over 5,000 pending requests worth trillions and the lack of synergy between states and local governments despite his agency’s best collaborative efforts.
The IPU, established in 1889 and headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland; is one of the oldest international organizations. It serves as a forum for dialogue, cooperation and exchange of best practices among parliaments. Its primary objectives include promoting democracy, peace, sustainable development and cooperation among parliaments and parliamentarians globally. It currently has 180 national parliamentary bodies from various countries and 6 regional parliamentary assemblies as members. Through its range of activities and programs; including conferences, seminars, and capacity-building initiatives; it provides a platform for parliamentarians to discuss global issues, share experiences and work on common challenges.
The COP is a global decision-making forum on climate change with about 198 member countries. It is the most important annual session organized by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The UNFCCC is an international treaty adopted in 1992 with the aim of addressing global climate change. Its secretariat was moved from Geneva, Switzerland to Bonn, Germany in 1996. The COP meetings assemble parties to the UNFCCC to discuss and negotiate actions on tackling climate change. It is the largest annual United Nations conference that takes place across the globe, attended on average by around 25,000 participants. This year’s session, tagged COP28 is scheduled from November 30 to December 12.
The EPO’s vision is to ensure effective coordination, implementation and monitoring of federal government policies and programmes on environmental/ecological problems; as well as providing sustained and adequate financial resources for their mitigation and impact. Its core mandates are to reduce ecological problems nationwide through timely and efficient intervention; judicious and equitable management of the Nigerian Ecological Fund and effective facilitation and implementation of projects through timely release of funds and monitoring. It is under the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF), within the Presidency and supervised by the Federal Ministry of Environment.
