COP29: CSOs Demand Payment Of $8 Trillion Climate Debt
A coalition of some Nigerian Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), has demanded an urgent cleanup of areas polluted by fossil fuel exploitation and provision of clean renewable energy to poor communities.
The CSOs specifically demanded for the payment of $8trillion climate debt owed by industrialized nations, saying that the demand was part of the outcome of COP 29, which held in Baku Azerbaijan from November 10-24 2024.
They noted that at COP15 in 2009, the pledge was to pay $10bn dollars yearly from 2010 to 2020 and to be raised to $100bn from 2020 which are yet to materialize.
This was as the CSOs called on Nigeria and other African countries to as a matter of necessity, place a ban on geoengineering experimentations, including solar radiation management, ocean fertilization, rock weathering and others.
The also asked that countries who do not support fossil fuels phase out should be barred from hosting the COP, stressing that polluters should not be kept out of the COP.
Dr. Nnimmo Bassey, Executive Director, HOMEF, who led other members of the CSOs, told journalists at a CSOs/Media parley in Abuja that the debt is estimated at an annual rate of $5-8 trillion, stressing that the payment will end the squabbles over climate finances whose targets are set but never pursued or met.
In the words of Bassey’ “The so-called finance COP was shy of mentioning how much the rich polluting nations would contribute to help vulnerable nations adapt and build resilience to the scourge. Talks of loss, damage and other instruments of climate finance became largely muted
“In their place, emerged a contentious concept of New Collective Quantified Goals (NCQG) – a new mechanism requiring that everyone contributes to the finance pot in the same thought pattern that birthed the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), the hallmark of voluntary emissions reduction according to convenience,” he said.
Bassey explained that the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) was presented as a means of raising funds needed to support mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage in developing and climate-vulnerable countries, found mostly in the Global South.
He also said that the amount needed was put at a minimum of $1.3 trillion annually, even as Civil Society analysts put the climate debt at between $5 and $8 trillion annually.
Bassey further said; “COP 29 came up with a miserly $300 billion which would come into effect in 2035. It has also been estimated that the $300 billion would be worth just $175 billion by then using current inflationary trend”.
The CSOs expressed concern that even the promised $300 billion may come through so-called innovative financial sources that include loans thereby increase the already huge debt burdens of the poor countries.
They also noted that when the COP deferred the date for providing needed funds to 2035, there did not appear to be any consideration of the scale of the climate disasters that the world may be facing then.
Bassey further said; “Climate finance can readily be raised by redirecting funds from military expenditure that saw rich nations spend up to $2.4 trillion in 2023.
“Halting fossil fuel subsidies and holding polluters accountable would raise more than $5 trillion annually. So, the problem is not a lack of cash, but a matter of priority,” he said
“We denounce false solutions and market-based mechanisms that include carbon offset schemes, carbon removals and others,” they so demanded.
The CSOs also demanded for community-led solutions to halt pollution at the source, stressing that communities and nations that have kept fossil fuels in the ground should be recognized as climate champions and duly compensated for such actions.
