When the issue of Climate Change is mentioned, the name of Hon. Sam Onuigbo, member representing Ikwuano/Umuahia North/Umuahia Federal Constituency for Abia will stand out in the history of Nigeria.
He sponsored the Climate Change Bill recently signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Speaking to Journalists at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, more commonly referred to as COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, he re-echoed that Climate Change is responsible for about 7million to 8million deaths in a year, hence Nigeria must take drastic measures to tackle the menace.
You talked about climate finance, how far have you people gone in the area of negotiations?
These are the issues about climate finance that have been brought to the fore much more deeply and forcefully than before. The US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen was in attendance and she said it openly, that is the very first time that a UN secretary and treasurer has attended, she made it very clear. Similarly there were other high level people and people have made different pledges. You probably also may have heard about a number of countries including the United States have pledged to give soft loans of about 8billion to South Africa, to wean them off coal as their source of energy. So many things have really happened about climate finance but more importantly, what was discussed was how you can involve the multilateral banks to start giving money.Two, how you can also get the private sector finance to play a role; I am sure you saw Jeff Bezos with the President Buhari, people like that who have so much money, how can they come in to help the world arrest the descent into climate crisis.Then in this discussion that we had on private finance, idea was also pushed forward on how not to charge, the same amount we are charging for conventional bonds, how not to charge such amounts for green bonds. Idea was also made very strong that in every country where you are working on how to raise this finance, there must be a regulatory and legal framework; these are some of the things we don’t have in place clearly in the country.So the bill that we have pushed for climate change covers all these things now; private finance, all this and all that and it is intended to give legal framework to whatever you are asking about green bond and this and that. So that is the aspect on climate finance.So it is coming on very strong and that is why you see in the bill we included the Governor of Central Bank as a member of the Council on Climate Change. So these are the critical aspects of what that bill contains, it has a lot, in fact it is robust and we did that bearing in mind that we know what we are facing, we don’t have the money but we have to start earning.
You are the initiator of the bill, are you going home fulfilled with what you are seeing especially your counterparts from other countries, are you going home fulfilled that the bill you initiated is going to be a long way in helping the people of Nigeria especially my mother in the village that does not understand climate change. But the impact of climate change she is feeling it.
I will tell you how she is going to benefit from it. You know that in leadership, those who are given the power to rule, it is something that you are lending to them, the ordinary citizens who goes out, queue in the sun, to use the power of his or her thumb to elect you, is telling you that you owe him or her a debt and that debt is debt of service, that debt is the debt of looking out for him or her, that debt is the debt of coming up with policies that are intended to protect and preserve her. So that is the way the old women and men in the village will benefit from our coming here because as leaders we have a duty to formulate policies that will impact positively on the well being of the old men and women in the village, how?We are likely to put in place, policies that will help to wean her away from using firewood by replacing that with some, maybe cooking stove that does not generate as much emission as firewood even though we use gas.And then we are working towards completely eliminating all the things that bring emissions, why am I saying so; I have had practical experience where an old woman from the village went to America and went for clinical checkup and the doctors declared that she was a chain smoker and she had never tasted cigarette in her life.So after thorough investigations, it was discovered that it was the smoke that she was inhaling while frying garri, while cooking in the kitchen, that smoke that changes the colour of the house from white to black, it also affects your lungs.So policies that we will put in place to be able to eliminate these kind of things will help the old woman even without her knowing it. So we have a duty and our coming here is for good and our coming here is to have those ideas or build on the ideas that we already have to make sure that where possible, we bring those positive ideas to bear on the well being our people. I will give you a number of examples. Firewood, the impact it appears innocuous, harmless but it goes to kill. It leads to a lot of respiratory problems. I do not know if you have read that climate change is responsible for about 7million to 8million deaths in a year. And of course you heard our President making a commitment about when to achieve net zero emission. Those are kind of far reaching statements and whatever that comes with that statement, that declaration, that presidential commitment; it is something that we have to benefit from it, in terms of getting resources that will help us to be able to attain that.So we have to have a direction, we have to have a regulatory and legal framework to be able to do all those things.
How transition will affect the economy?
Essentially what we have come to do like I said before is to be able to enhance our knowledge, borrow from those who know better than us, hear the direction that others are going towards and be able to chat our own course towards how it is going to be okay for us. You probably must have heard everyone talking about 2050 and all that but our president said 2060; nobody is going to change that in a hurry because we have to transit to net zero in a manner that is just, in a manner that is fair, in a manner that is inclusive and above all, in a manner that has a human face bearing in mind that Nigeria is a fossil fuel dependent economy.So we are prepared already to transit but we are going to transit in a way that we don’t end up committing suicide. But we are also going to transit being conscious of the fact that unless we transit in this just and fair manner but rapidly, we will end up with all those 206trillion cubic feet of gas that is buried on the ground, our oil. So we don’t want these things to become stranded assets because the world has left us behind.
The launch of the green grid?
I think the greatest take away from this COP26 is the launch of the green grid, so I think it is the greatest take away here because for us as Africans, we see opportunity to contribute to world development and also to benefit therefore because with the energy super highway it is most likely that there will be energy sufficiency across the globe. So I am happy also that Nigeria has indicated interest in being part of it. I am a member of the climate parliament, we deliberated on it last night and everybody was excited that Nigeria and Kenya in Africa is going to partner with rest of the world including the United States of America to drive this initiative which is going to be a mega revolution. And I believe that here it is also an opportunity for our policy makers to be able to network sufficiently in terms of funding of our projects and policies in the environmental sector. I am sure that you are aware that Nigeria has not shown sufficient interest in terms of funding in that ministry and its agencies. So here is an opportunity for those of us here to attract investments and supports from our global partners and the international community on how to drive some of these initiatives because climate change is real but we have not been able to show sufficient commitment in terms of budgetary provisions to this ministry and its agencies.So this is an opportunity for us to find alternative funding and opportunities for this ministry and all its agencies. So hopefully we are going to see major improvements in the activities in the climate and environmental sector.
What is the role of the law in terms of the legal framework in addressing investments?
Before you can get funding or supports, you must have the necessary frameworks and these frameworks has to be in terms of policy, it must be well outlined and articulated and attractive as well. Then we must also have a legal framework for us to drive these policies. We are also going to put pressure on the executives to ensure immediate implementation, making sure that all the necessary agencies that have to be set up are set up immediately so that they will be able to take off. I believe we are backwards, many years back so we need to fast forward and fast track the processes and policies so that we can be able to get these things on track, so that we can begin to see some improvements in the environmental and private sector.
