By Gabriel Ewepu

In this interview, the Executive Director, for Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria, Chima Williams, and also a member of the International Legislative Committee of Friends of the Earth International, and the 2022 Goldman Environmental Prize winner, the Green Noble Prize for Africa, spoke with Vanguard exclusively on agreement reached on the issue of ‘Loss and Damage’, including other burning issues negatively impacting non-polluting countries at the just concluded Conference of the Parties, COP 27, held in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

Excerpts:

Q: Now that you are back from COP27 what really inspired you while you were there?

Well, the first thing is that the COP27 is the first COP that I am attending and it is for a reason because I have considered, it is on principle, not based on that I didn’t have the opportunities to the attend the various COPs but on principle I decided not to attend any of them because I see most of the COPs as just talk shops and opportunity for corporate lobbying of government especially those that are involved in the activities that contributes to climate change impacts.

But for COP27, it had been christened the ‘African COP’ by the UN CCC because it was holding on an African soil in Egypt and in 2022 when it is happening I am the African environmental ambassador as the 2022 Goldman Environmental Prize Winner for Africa. So I owe it as a reasonability to speak for Africa and for Africans from the environment protection point of view, to speak for Nigeria and for Nigerians from the environment point of view and to speak also for the 77 countries that are members of the Friends of the Earth International where I am a member of the executive committee on issues of environment and environment protect.

And of course what is COP all about, the conference of parties is designed to look at how to address the root causes of things that leads to climate change and then to find solutions to it, this is where all the, starting from Rio which was the major signpost on issue of climate and environment in the conference of parties and think COP27 means that the conference of parties had been on for 27 because it is a yearly event.

Now going for this COP was based on responsibility and then personal inspiration was to see how we can sustain he gains of previous conference of party resolutions that has set some standards and then advance further.

The basic demand from African leaders had been on this ‘loss and damage’ which is to address the irreversible losses that are occasioned by climate change impact which we know that Africa that contributes least, the incidence of climate change benefit the most as victims of the impact of the climate change.

So we thought that we could help our African leaders to amplify their voices on this loss and damages and then are able to now work with the African leaders to ensure that the proper packaging for the ‘loss and damage’ contestation is done because it is not about talking about loss and damages, which are the ingredients that should be the component part of it, what do we really want to achieve, what do we really want to have, how do we want the process to run so that it doesn’t run like the previous promises and previous processes starting from Rio to Copenhagen to Paris and of course where we are today.

On the issue of lobbyists from the oil and gas sector at the COP27, which outnumbered countries’ delegates that were there, even some of them were in committees to influence discussions and decisions. Don’t you think the whole purpose of COP27 was defeated?  

These are some of the worries and this is one of the reasons I said earlier on that I don’t attend COP events because I consider it as a jamboree and as a platform for corporate to lobby government and it played out heavily in Egypt.

One of the first things is that for me and I have repeatedly said it, that COP27 is not an Africa COP. From the venue of the COP itself, the venue Sham El Sheik, is an artificial city created in the dessert where Egyptians themselves cannot have free access that is the ordinary Egyptian citizens, so it is just like Europe on African land or soil.

Now what does it show, who are the victims of climate change impact, whose voices need to be heard, is the frontline communities, it is the ordinary people in the villages.

So if Egyptians in whose country that the COP is taking place cannot access the venue freely, how many African frontline communities will have access, that of course you know that the corporates, they have all the resources, they have all the technologies, they have everything to bombard the venue and what is their purpose?

Their purpose is to lobby that those critical areas of demand will be watered down if taken at all and that if they almost succeeded with the loss and damage discourse because towards the end of COP where resolutions were to be made, the issue of loss and damage was already removed from the discussion table and shifted to the next year’s COP, COP28 for discussion.

But for the concerted efforts of global civil society groups that insisted including Friends of the Earth International that insisted that if you do not bring back, if you do not discuss the loss and damage concerns of African leaders then they will go home empty handed and it means that the hosting of COP27 in Africa was a waste of time, waste of energy, waste of resources for both African people and their leaders.

So it was this insistence and of course the insistence of some of the African leaders that led to bringing it back on the table and we can see that it was half-heartedly done because even when it was brought back, what was the discussion, the discussion was that we have accepted to have it and then to provide funds for it, so how much is the fund that is to be provided? Who is to provide the funds? Who is to manage the funds? Who is to superintend? Where will the funds go to?

These are things that needed to be straightened out but were they discussed, no; so it is work in progress. So for me I think the corporate lobbyists they did their yo-men job.

 You mean they succeeded?

They succeeded and we lost and at the end of the day it is going to take a process to even begin to discuss those processes and then who knows what will be the final outcome of those discussions and when those final outcomes will be concluded. It might still dovetail to COP28.

In terms of follow up and implementation?

In terms of even making the conclusions on what that fund is composed of and consist of and how it is going to be used and when implementation will start and the rest of them. So it is a whole bunch.

Let me shock you and I want to say this with every sense of responsibility, as a Nigerian I was terribly disappointed with the Nigerian official delegation to COP27 in terms of our Nigerian pavilion.

We marched through all the other pavilions, it was only in Nigerian pavilion that you saw a banner displaying the logos and names of oil companies operating in Nigeria as part of sponsorship or whatever for Nigeria at the COP27. There was no other place that you had such kinds of display and it was very frustrating and very annoying. Can’t we hide ourselves a little bit, must we display and show the whole world.

What’s the implication of that?

The implication of that is that there is already a corporate capture because if I have sponsored you or have contributed to you, you can’t speak so strongly against me even when you want to, you will be watering down your language.

So you mean our delegates, no moral standing?

I won’t say that because I don’t what led to that and I am not talking about all our delegates, somebody must be in charge that had made that possible. But my point here is this, it displays to the whole world that Nigeria as far as COP is concerned is not completely independent.

So it means we are still under the whims and caprices of the polluters?

I mean he who pays the piper dictates the tune, it is not me that made that adage and it is an adage that is true at all times. So if we want to be identified will Nigeria tell me that they don’t have the resources to sponsor? If you don’t have enough resources, you shake it and cut down the number of delegation or delegates that you want to take and be independent and speak independently without fear or favour from anybody.

So you mean Nigeria don’t have any solution in sight like to come out from this quagmire, things that capture the environment and people?

No, that is not what I am saying. First and foremost I believe in this country called Nigeria, I’m a proud Nigerian and I am proud to say it everywhere that I am a Nigerian and I am a very optimistic Nigerian, that Nigeria will and must be better than what we have today but it takes concerted efforts, it is not one person’s affair, it is not government, who is government? Government are citizens like me and you, whom we have entrusted some powers or state functions to.

So we all collectively can make the Nigeria that we want, no one person. I tell people even if you have 1million President Buharis will not be enough to change the course of Nigeria, it is collective, all the over 200 million Nigerians everybody must be involved in one way or the other for us to change the direction of this country.

Nigeria is a very rich country, I do not believe and I say it everywhere, Nigeria is not by all standards, Nigeria cannot be called a poor country, Nigeria can never be called a poor country, we are not.

In terms of God’s endowments, Nigeria is among the first three in the world that God endowed natural resources. What sector of natural resources that Nigeria does not have?

When it comes to human resources, Nigeria is among the first three. If you check the intelligence indices, Nigeria is among the first three intelligence quotients per person in the whole world.

Why is it that Nigerians excel in different fields when they are out of the shores of this country? With the hard experiences that we have here, when Nigerians go out they excel, they set, create records.

So a people rich in those senses because the key drivers is natural and human resource capitals and Nigeria have them in quantum, so why should we continue to live beggarly when we should be giving others?

And let’s back at, going back into time, in the 50s, 60s Nigerian economy was the strongest economy in the world because as at then, the Nigerian currency was the highest currency in the world, higher than Pound Sterling, US Dollars and all the European country currencies.

So how can we classify ourselves as a poor nation or as a poor country, it is just for us to look inward, where did we get it wrong and begin to fix it up.

There was a time I think in 2009 that these big polluters promised $100 billion to be paid but since that time till now, nothing has come out of it; what is the reason?

This question is what made me to first express concerns over the agreements or the resolutions on loss and damage, whether it is not still yet to its benefit because this $100 billion per year had been there and out of this how much has actually been contributed per year to this fund?

And I think in Paris, that is the last COP, it was not clear that out of the $100 billion, what have been generated was for the adaptation fund, was not up to 40 per cent from that time till now.

And then the question will be asked again and again; out of what had even come, what percentage has gotten to the frontline communities where Africa is the greatest victim?

So the issue of why are these funds not being made available is just simply as a result of the politics that is ingrained in all these processes because there is no punishment that is spelt out for not making this contributions, no punitive measures at all; so if you don’t put your own money down within this particular period, this and that will happen to you; so since such punitive measures are not there, then they get away with it, that is why they make it look voluntarily sort of.

Now that the African groups of negotiators are asking for the climate fund to go beyond $100 billion a year to $1.3 trillion a year is that sufficient in addressing the needs of developing nations?

I think possibly the negotiators would have taken into account that the $10 billion is not made available, so whatever sum they are asking for is just upping the ante, let it be that there is an increase.

Of course when we talk about addressing developing nations and as we talk about for instance the loss and damage, these are irreversible damages that no amount of money can replace them, so the highest you can just do is to assuage, palliative, palliate the people and make them just feel we are worried about you but when this fund comes to develop critical infrastructure that will ensure that there is a reduction on the impact, can it restitute the people, can it equally create an opportunity for them to make alternative safeguards or take alternative safeguard measures to adapt when it occurs.

And as we have seen it, it is very costly to do adaptation. So what measures will be put in place to mitigate and of course the critical component which is remediation because if you have destroyed you have to remediate, although we know that remediation should be in the realm of those identified destroyers but of course there has to be processes put in place to ensure that remediation is brought on the on the right bar.

And you know that in almost all the discourses, little attention is paid to remediation and little mention is made of remediation and this is one critical sector I think the corporate lobbyists take advantage of.