Opinion Muhammadu Buhari: How not to talk with Africa about climate change

By Muhammadu Buhari
November 9, 2022 at 1:12 p.m. EST

Muhammadu Buhari is the president of Nigeria.

Part of my nation is underwater. Seasonal flooding is normal in Nigeria, but not like this. Thirty-four of the country’s 36 states have been affected. More than 1.4 million people have been displaced. Together with drought-driven famine in the Horn of Africa, cascading wildfires across the North and wave upon wave of intensifying cyclones in the South, climate disasters in Africa form the backdrop to this year’s U.N. Climate Change Conference (known as COP27) in Egypt.

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. According to the United Nations, Africa is the continent worst affected by climate change despite contributing the least to it. Even though the COP27’s agenda notes the need for compensation for loss and damages (as distinct from adaptation and mitigation funding), that demand has mostly been met with silence in the West.

Amid this simmering acrimony, I offer a few words of advice to Western negotiators at this year’s COP27. They should help the West avoid exacerbating what the U.N. secretary general has called “a climate of mistrust” enveloping our world. Some of the global south’s demands seem obvious. But experience of the recent past suggests they need to be reiterated.

First, rich countries should direct a greater share of funding to developing nations’ adaptation to the effects of climate change. Most financing currently flows toward mitigation projects, such as renewable energy projects, that reduce emissions. While such projects have their uses, far more money needs to go to helping Africa adapt to the effects of climate change — which seems only fair for a continent that produces less than 3 percent of global emissions.

Africa urgently needs investment in adaptation infrastructure — such as flood prevention systems — to stave off the disasters that destroy communities and cripple economies.

Second, don’t tell Africans they can’t use their own resources. If Africa were to use all its known reserves of natural gas — the cleanest transitional fossil fuel — its share of global emissions would rise from a mere 3 percent to 3.5 percent.

We are not the problem. Yet the continent needs a reliable source of power if it is to pull millions of citizens out of poverty and create jobs for its burgeoning youth population. Africa’s future must be carbon-free. But current energy demands cannot yet be met solely through weather-dependent solar and wind power.

Don’t tell Africa that the world cannot afford the climate cost of its hydrocarbons — and then fire up coal stations whenever Europe feels an energy pinch. Don’t tell the poorest in the world that their marginal energy use will break the carbon budget — only to sign off on new domestic permits for oil and gas exploration. It gives the impression your citizens have more of a right to energy than Africans.

Third, when you realize you need Africa’s reserves, don’t cut its citizens out of the benefits. In the wake of the Ukraine war, there has been a resurgence of interest in Africa’s gas. But this impulse is coming from Western companies — backed by their governments — who are interested only in extracting these resources and then exporting them to Europe.

Funding for gas that benefits Africa as well as the West is conspicuously lacking. At last year’s COP, Western governments and multilateral lenders pledged to stop all funding for overseas fossil fuel projects. Without these pools of capital, Africa will struggle to tap the gas needed to boost its own domestic power supply. Consequently, its development and industrialization will suffer. Donor countries don’t believe in the developing world exploiting its own hydrocarbons even as they pursue new oil and gas projects within their own borders.

Western development has unleashed climate catastrophe on my continent. Now, the rich countries’ green policies dictate that Africans should remain poor for the greater good. To compound the injustice, Africa’s hydrocarbons will be exploited after all — just not for Africans.

Fourth, follow your own logic. Africa is told that the falling cost of renewables means that it must leapfrog carbon-emitting industries. At the same time, Western governments are effectively paying their citizens to burn more hydrocarbons: Lavish subsidy packages have been drawn up to offset spiraling energy bills. Meanwhile, Africa is the continent closest to being carbon-neutral. It reserves the right to plug holes in its energy mix with the resources in its ground — especially when they will make almost no difference to global emissions.

The Western countries are unable to take politically difficult decisions that hurt domestically. Instead, they move the problem offshore, essentially dictating that the developing world must swallow the pill too bitter for their own voters’ palates. Africa didn’t cause the mess, yet we pay the price. At this year’s COP, that should be the starting point for all negotiations.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/09/nigerian-president-cop27-africa-climate-change/

Picture 2 = An aerial view of the flooded Obagi community in Ahoada, Rivers state, Nigeria, on Oct. 22. (Temilade Adelaja/REUTERS)

How will this administration pay loan borrow from China?
Next Year Nigerians will see shege

ok

Thank You Tinubu, U spoke the mind of the world. now buhari is confirming it

Peter Obi is the most incompetent and failure of a person to understand how things work and how it should be...

The gce holder was asked about climate change, he said he is not informed about it. How can a presidential can be this du nce.....? You dont know abt climate change but you are running your mouth like tap water...

Tinubu gave the perfect answer and you can see Joe biden releasing funds for Africa concerning this climate change..

Peter Obi will be made the minister of errands when tinubu wins..... he sabi run errand the way he did for his gale partner atiku

@op, Buhari said all this? Is he even aware of what is climate change?

Just tell us that Buhari read the news about climate change as edited by garbage shehu

Western scammers

By Muhammadu Buhari



Great submission though

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. Buhari wrote all these?

Western countries are scammers

Where are all these read out from him coming from all of sudden?

Fossil fuels are the drivers of industrialization. Every great power utilized (or still utilizes) them.

It is hypocrisy to dictate to your neighbor on how to use his I-beta-pass-my-neighbour generator while the exhaust pipes from your Mikano are directly facing his only window.

African leaders and third-worlders must stop signing useless pacts and treaties.

Glad that the Western media published the news.
How many vehicles,industries, power plants do we have in Africa?
Africa burn less than 10% of annual fossil fuel world wide.
It is high time African leaders start speaking up against the Western hypocrites!

Lol I'm glad we are waking up...

Nice. I support this opinion

The issue of climate change is devastating, especially this year. It hit Africa really bad and this poses a significant challenge to our economic growth even though we contribute the least to the problem. Greening the economy will not be an easy task for African countries and this is why Just-Transition is an urgent need.

Very powerful stuff, you cannot demand the most sacrifice from the man who created the least to the problem at hand.

naptu2:


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/09/nigerian-president-cop27-africa-climate-change/

Picture 2 = An aerial view of the flooded Obagi community in Ahoada, Rivers state, Nigeria, on Oct. 22. (Temilade Adelaja/REUTERS)

Interestingly daft

Awise09:
Where are all these read out from him coming from all of sudden?

His speech writer is on overdrive

Grand pa

USeless president

Buhari keep depending on the West and don't think of positive thing to do for the betterment of your country.

DesChyko:
By Muhammadu Buhari



Great submission though

What is great about this submission?

H