By Jude Njoku

The Nigerian Climate Action Network, NigeriaCAN, has called on the government to kick-start the process of  recommitting itself  to achieving poverty reduction and sustainable development by ensuring sustainable energy access to all Nigerians, especially the rural poor.

The Network which coordinates climate change activities of NGOs in Nigeria, stated that speedy implementation of the power sector reforms, enhancing the consumption of gas in households, transport and power sectors, removal of subsidies from fossil fuel, the provision of renewable energy in rural areas -are some of the vital steps that will spread the benefits of cleaner energy to Nigerians.

“The coalition which made this recommendation in the recent edition of its Newsletter, declared”an inclusive economic growth -free of poverty and environmental degradation is the future we want in Nigeria; that will be Nigeria’s best Rio outcome”.

In his own reaction, a Lagos-based environmentalist, Mr. Chike Chikwendu an Engineer, noted that Rio+20 was intended as a follow up on the 1992 Earth Summit, which put in place landmark conventions on climate change and biodiversity, as well as commitments on poverty eradication and social justice.

“However, between 1992 and 2012, global emissions have risen by 48 percent, 300m hectares of forest have been cleared and the population has increased by 1.6bn people. So we can see that the problems have grown instead of diminishing despite the commitments of nations to the Rio Declaration,” the Friends of the Environment FOTE helsman said.

A strong Nigerian delegation led by President Goodluck Jonathan attended the Rio+20 summit. The Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala gave a broad outline of Nigeria’s plan for green growth at the G20 meeting.

She reiterated Nigeria’s desire to pursue green growth as a way to address market failures by phasing out inefficient subsidies and raising productivity through structural reform of infrastructure, especially in the power and agricultural sectors.

Environmentalists have held divergent views about the outcome of  the Rio Summit. While developing countries and civil society groups, felt that the commitments by rich countries did not go far enough,  developed countries made voluntary pledges to ease the burden of the transition to green economy. By the close of the conference, almost 700 pledges totaling $513 billion had been received from governments, the private sector, civil society and other groups.

Other highlights of the United Nations sponsored summit include the announcement by the US Secretary of State of a partnership between the US and African nations totaling $20 million.

This will unlock private financing for clean energy projects in Africa and beyond. The Brazilian President pledged $6 million to the UNEP’s fund targeting developing countries and $10 million towards climate change challenges in Africa, least developing countries and small Island States.