COP 20: Opening Ceremony in Pictures

Nagmeldin G Elhassan, Chair of the African Group of Negotiators 

COP 20 President & Peruvian Environment Minister: Manuel Pulgar-Vidal

Rajendra K Pachauri, IPCC Chair

Africa eyes comprehensive 2015 draft as Lima climate talks begin

African civil society at COP 20 Lima

The United Nations Climate Conference opening today in Lima, Peru carries the prospects of putting the world on the pathway to a comprehensive climate agreement in 2015, experts say. 

Amidst cautious optimism, African civil society groups under the umbrella of the Pan-African Climate Justice (PACJA) have called for a draft text to be adopted in Paris next year that will commit countries to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. Speaking at the Pre-UNFCCC COP 20 Consultative Consultative workshop in Lima, Sam Ogallah stated that PACJA’s strength is embedded on the preparedness of the African civil society at all levels to ensure that the New Climate Change Agreement to be concluded in Paris in 2015 is responsive to African aspirations and realities.

Robert Chimambo added that Africa expects nothing short of a comprehensive draft agreement for 2015 in Lima as the stakes are already high with Africa being at the receiving end of the disastrous consequences of climate change. The UN environment programme warned earlier this month that industrialised countries were falling short of the emissions reductions needed to prevent warming of 2C above pre-industrial levels, the goal set by world leaders. Carbon dioxide emissions are expected to reach a record high of 40bn tonnes in 2014. Meanwhile, 2014 is shaping up to be the hottest on record.

PRE-COP 20: African civil society consultative workshop, Lima in pictures

COP 20: Our Position for Lima Climate Talks - by Nigerian civil society

We, the representatives of Nigerian Civil Society under the aegis of Climate and Sustainable Development Network of Nigeria (CSDevNet) with support from Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) held nation-wide consultations and mobilisation meetings on the imperatives of Climate Justice and Post-2015 Agenda as well as draw strategies and action plans for a robust participation in COP 20/CMP10 by the Nigerian government. The meetings which took place from the 15th – 20th of November 2014 across four geo-political zones in the country drew participants from Government, CSOs, Media, International Development Partners, grassroots community practitioners, trusts, farmer cooperatives, federations of slum dwellers and pastoralists, home based caregivers, youth, women and faith-based organizations, including those working on child welfare, the elderly, disabled and those focusing on livestock and animal welfare.

Recognising the role of Nigeria to speak with one voice along with other African countries at the forthcoming Lima COP 20 and desirous that this one voice should be that of and be informed by realities of the local communities; and the fact that non-state actors contribution to the UNFCCC process and its outcome is essential for informed policy formulation and monitoring of its implementation at all levels;

Acknowledging that these meetings held at a time that the world is expressing its deep solidarity with the families of the abducted Chibok schoolgirls and the people of North-East Nigeria, we hereby join the global call for solidarity and compassion with the Chibok families and we say “Bring Back Our Girls, Now and Alive”!

Affirming the authority of the Nigerian Civil Society and communities, as the expression of the sovereign will and voice of the people;

Concerned by the cruel irony that a people who have lived for so long in harmony with Mother Earth, imprinting the lightest of footprints, now suffer a crisis they contributed the least towards it cause; 

Noting the release of the Synthesis Report of the IPCC’s 5^th Assessment Report that cited evidence of increasing warming globe.

We hereby declare and adopt the following as our position for Nigeria:

UBA Ruby Account Offers More Exclusive Perks For Women, Introduces Priority Pass

Women who chose Ruby, a female focused current account offered by pan-African bank, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, will now enjoy more perks as the bank has expanded its list of exclusive partners offering special services to its female account holders.

UBA Ruby Account

Ruby is a current account offered by UBA exclusively to its female bank customers to satisfy some of their business and personal and needs comes with several specially attached privileges for account holders.   The current account is specifically designed for the discerning woman of substance providing unique services to fit the banking needs of UBA’s exquisite female customers.

 “Priority Pass” is the new value added services offered by UBA to Ruby Acct Customers. The “Priority Pass” grants customers access to over 600 VIP lounges in more than 100 countries and 300 cities worldwide regardless of the class of travel or airline a Ruby account holder flies.

“Priority Pass Membership offers great value for money and allows members to use any of 600 airport lounges whenever they travel” explained Olumide Osunyomi, UBA’s Head of Retail Products

Lima climate talks must produce comprehensive draft for 2015 deal, civil society insists

Nigerians demanding Climate Justice

The meeting of nearly 200 governments in Peru later this year for the 20^th Conference of Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) must produce the first draft of a global deal to cut emissions, a coalition of Nigerian civil society says.

In a release marking the commencement of the 2014 Global Week of Action for Climate Justice, Atayi Babs of the Climate and Sustainable Development Network of Nigeria (CSDevNet) decried the slow progress at the last round of talks in Warsaw, Poland which means significant progress is needed in key areas including climate financing and how to tackle greenhouse gas emissions.

The meeting in Lima in December is a staging point towards a crunch summit in Paris in 2015 when it is hoped world leaders will agree, for the first time, a global deal on cutting emissions that includes both rich and poor countries.

"If what we want by Paris 2015 is a new binding global climate agreement, then Lima must produce a solid working draft," said Atayi Babs.

Setting green finance on the right track

Illustration: Patrick Hoesly

Environmental disasters around the globe keep reminding us that humankind has to change its unsustainable ways of living. Therefore we need enormous amounts of green finance to tackle these challenges in the coming decades. The good news is that we have a broad consensus on this necessity. However, almost acknowledged as much as the notion that we have to restrict our ways of living in a way that we stay within the planetary boundaries, is the sense of helplessness about where this green finance shall come from.

At this point, we are facing the first hurdle: we do not have a precise definition of ‘green finance’, which makes it hard to mobilize it. For the moment, we will define ‘green finance’ broadly as finance flows or investments that respect the planetary boundaries.

A multitude of reports on the bottlenecks and challenges of green finance have been published. The same is true for estimations of financing resources and needs, as well as case studies on best practices. In a nutshell, financing needs are impressively high, with estimates for investments in green infrastructure varying between US$1-2trn per year for the next decades.

Government budgets are insufficient, even more so in the aftermath of the latest crisis, and private and institutional investors (such as pension funds, assurances and sovereign wealth funds) that have assets under management of several tens of trillions of dollars only invest less than 1% of their portfolios in capital products that are targeted for green investments. The well-known constraints include high risks, insufficient policy support and enabling environments, and a lack of a project pipeline.