Flooding in Nigerian villages is just one of the effects of climate change that the country will have to address in drawing up its “intended nationally determined contributions” (INDCs) for the U.N. Climate Conference in Paris in December: Credit: Courtesy of NDWPD, 2011

By Ini Ekott
LAGOS, Aug 2 2015 (IPS)

Nigeria seems in no haste to unveil its climate pledge with just four months to go before the U.N. Climate Conference scheduled for December in Paris.

However, unlike Gabon, Morocco, Ethiopia and Kenya – the only African nations yet to submit their commitments – Nigeria has just commissioned a committee of experts to draw up targets and responses for its “intended nationally determined contributions” (INDCs).

INDCS are the post-2020 climate actions that countries say they will take under a new international agreement to be reached at the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris, and to be submitted to the United Nations by September."The whole exercise [of preparing INDCs] will consider some priority sectors, look at the baseline and look at our needs for development and see what we can put on the table that we are going to strive to mitigate in terms of greenhouse gases” – Samuel Adejuwon, Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Environment

Ahead of that date, Nigeria says its goals are clear: balancing post-2020 greenhouse gas (GHG) emission cut projections with its development peculiarities, according to Samuel Adejuwon, deputy director of the Federal Ministry of Environment’s Department of Climate Change in Abuja.

Nigeria is Africa’s fourth largest emitter of CO2, and there is no doubt climate change is already a problem it faces.

From the north, encroachment of the Sahara is helping to fuel a bloody insurgency by the jihadist group Boko Haram, as well as resource conflict between farmers and pastoralists in its central region, while the rise in ocean levels and flooding are affecting the south.

In a report issued in October 2014, the Mapelcroft global analytics company said that Nigeria, along with Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India and the Philippines, were the countries facing the greatest risk of climate change-fuelled conflict today.

Nigeria’s hopes for slashing its emission levels as part of its INDCs face several tests.

One is that for an economy almost solely dependent on oil – which accounts for a major portion of its 500 billion dollar gross domestic product (GDP), Africa’s highest – the commitment it takes to Paris will reflect how jettisoning fossil fuel cannot be an urgent priority and why doing so will require significant time and resources.

“The whole exercise will consider some priority sectors, look at the baseline and look at our needs for development and see what we can put on the table that we are going to strive to mitigate in terms of greenhouse gases,” says Adejuwon.

Another test is Nigeria’s energy shortage. The country produces about 4,000 megawatts for 170 million people, leaving much of the population reliant on wood, charcoal and waste to fulfil household energy needs such as cooking, heating and lighting.

In 2014, Nigerians used at least 12 million litres of diesel and petrol every day to drive back-up generators, according to former power Minister Chinedu Nebo. The country’s daily petrol consumption (cars included) stands at about 40 million litres, according to the state oil company, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.

Cutting the level of pollution that this consumption causes will require big investments in renewable and cleaner energy, says Professor Olukayode Oladipo, a climate change expert and one of three consultants drawing up the INDCs for the government.

Last year, former finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said the country needed 14 billion dollars each year in energy investments and related infrastructure.

Oladipo argues that the key to the issue lies in striking a balance between a future of lower greenhouse emissions and immediate developmental realities.

“Every country is now exploring how to use less energy … in an efficient manner, how to rely on renewable energy sources.” In Nigeria, we are looking at “how to be able to drive our economy through reduced energy consumption without actually reducing the rate at which our economy is growing.”

Last year, minister of power Chinedu Nebo said that while solar panels were welcome for use in shoring up generation in distant communities, the government will deploy coal in addition to the hydro power currently in use.

“There is no doubt that the potential is there. Clean coal technology can give us good electricity and minimum pollution at the same time,” he said.

Insecurity

Oladipo also stresses that besides fuel, Nigeria’s climate plans will focus on agriculture, partly to diversify from oil and also as a response to growing resource conflict.

“We are not saying it is the only determinant of crisis,” he says of climate change stoking conflict over resources, “but at least it is adding to the degree and the frequency of the occurrence of these conflicts.

Apart from Boko Haram activities in the north which have been responsible for at least 20,000 deaths, clashes between pastoralists and farmers over land has killed thousands in Nigeria’s central region in recent years.

In the latest attack in May this year, herdsmen from the Fulani tribe slaughtered at least 96 people in the central state of Benue, Nigeria’s Punch newspaper reported.

The government agrees that climate change is one of the causes of the frequent bloodletting, alongside factors like urbanisation, but not much has been done to address the problem.

Oladipo says he believes that Nigeria’s new leader, Muhammadu Buhari, will do more to address fundamental climate change issues, point out that in his inaugural address on May 29, Buhari pledged to be a more “forceful and constructive player in the global fight against climate change.”

However, Nnimmo Bassey of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation argues that proposals put forward by Nigeria and Africa can barely be achieved if the developed nations – the biggest polluters – fail to act more to meet their commitments and cut down on their emissions.

“Nigeria should insist that industrialised nations cut emissions at source and not place the burden on vulnerable nations,” says Bassey.

Urging action from those nations, including the United States, will form a key element of Nigerian and African INDCs, adds Oladipo.

Edited by Phil Harris    

Activists demand that the COP20 government delegates approve measures to foment investment in renewable energies and eliminate their huge subsidies for fossil fuels. Credit: Joshua Wiese/IPS

By Diego Arguedas Ortiz
LIMA, Dec 8 2014 (IPS)

Packed into stifling meeting rooms in the Peruvian capital, delegates from 195 countries are trying to find a path that would make it possible for the planet to reach climate neutrality in the second half of this century – the only way to avoid irreversible damage, scientists warn.

Climate neutrality is defined as no net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, achieved by minimising emissions as much as possible, so an equivalent amount is sequestered or offset. The term climate neutral, rather than carbon neutral, is used to reflect the fact that it is not just carbon dioxide (CO2) that is causing climate change but other greenhouse gases as well.

To reach climate neutrality it is essential to accelerate the transition from a fossil fuel-based economy to one that employs renewable energies.

As the COP20 climate summit hosted by Lima Dec. 1-12 approaches the end, the number of developing countries accepting the proposal to set a climate neutral goal – also known as “net zero” – for 2050 is growing.

“The scientific data are more and more alarming,” said Giovanna Valverde, president pro tempore of the Association of Independent Latin American and Caribbean states (AILAC), a regional group of governments of middle-income countries that are negotiating as a bloc in the 20th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP20) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

“The coordinator of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) showed us the data in the plenary session, and indicated the urgency we are facing. If we set a goal for 2050 it’s so that everyone can join in, but the numbers are alarming,” she told IPS.

Reports by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the International Energy Agency (IEA), and the IPCC concur on how to reach neutrality: invest more in clean energies, reduce fossil fuel consumption, improve farming practices, reforest, and bolster energy efficiency.

The question of climate neutrality became a key focus of debate in the first week of the conference, but there is a long way to go before it takes shape as a concrete commitment by the international community, to guarantee the transition to a clean economy.

A report by the British Overseas Development Institute found that the industrial and emerging powers of the Group of 20 (G20) continue to invest some 88 billion dollars a year in fossil fuel subsidies, rather than using that money to boost renewable energies.

Moreover, the power and lobbying of the fossil fuel industry can be felt at COP20, where the agenda even includes events organised by multinational oil companies like the Anglo-Dutch Shell, on Monday Dec. 8.

Hopes for a greener world came to life at the COP20 installations in the Peruvian capital. Credit: COP 20

Valverde, from Costa Rica, said the key is for “countries to seriously commit to providing information for emission reduction contributions so scientists will have time between 2015 and 2020 to compare methodologies used by different countries, do the math, and define how much more has to be reduced.”

The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) issued a statement urging industrialised countries to make more ambitious contributions, reducing dependence on dirty energy sources.

AOSIS called for the planet to reach zero emissions in 2100, which would mean the total elimination of fossil fuels, as recommended by the IPCC in its latest report, released Nov. 2. Countries like Poland, a leading coal producer, announced their rejection of that initiative.

The opposition mounted by countries dependent on fossil fuels is hindering the expansion and growth of clean energies. The European Union, for example, has not agreed on a long-term target within the bloc, nor is it sure that it will back the climate neutrality proposal presented by the UNFCCC and supported by developing countries.

“The goal is part of the mitigation debate and that is still on the table,” one of the EU negotiators, Elina Bardram, told IPS. “It’s important that by the time we get to Paris we have a shared view on where we should go,” she added, referring to the COP21, to be held in the French capital in November 2015.

“That will tell us which is the ambition for a low -carbon future. We don’t have a fixed view on the long-term goal, but of course we have been taking note of the reasons by the IPCC and other scientific bodies.”

A new binding global climate treaty is to be signed in Paris, to replace the Kyoto Protocol as of 2020.

But now in Lima the negotiators must hammer out the form of what many consider the heart of the future treaty: national contributions.

The contributions include each nation’s commitment to reducing emissions, including how much and when. The sum of all the contributions should be sufficient to ward off irreversible effects from climate change.

To achieve that, developing countries and civil society in the South as well as the industrialised North are proposing a mix of reducing incentives for fossil fuels; reforestation; improved agricultural techniques; and investment in renewable energies.

Although the countries are to officially report their contributions between March and June 2015, some have already made announcements.

On Nov. 12, in a joint announcement in Beijing, the United States promised to cut its emissions 26 to 28 percent by 2025 from 2005 levels, and China said it would make its “best effort” to peak emissions before 2030 and later reduce them.

But scientific studies warn that more ambitious steps and faster progress are needed.

In the Adaptation Gap Report 2014 published Nov. 19, UNEP assessed the difference between the current measures taken by countries and what would be needed to prevent severe irreversible damage from climate change.

“This report makes it clear that at some point in the second half of the 21st century we will have to achieve climate neutrality, or as some call it, net zero, in terms of global emissions,” said Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the UNFCCC.

According to the study, global emissions should peak in the next 10 years, followed by actions to adopt more clean energy and reduce the use of fossil fuels.

So far, the delegates in Lima have postponed the review of the pre-2020 emissions cuts, as they are caught up in procedural struggles.

Now the countries are running the risk of failing to reach agreement on the actions needed to reduce emissions to keep the average temperature increase below 2 degrees Celsius – although there are even voices warning that the increase should be lower in order to prevent irreversible effects.

“Our position is that the increases in temperature can’t go beyond 1.5 degrees. That would be too harmful for countries like ours,” Ram Prasad of Nepal, the chair of the LDC (Least Developed Countries) group, told IPS.

Climate action is urgent because with each years that goes by, the situation is becoming more and more complicated for the most vulnerable countries, mainly the world’s poorest nations, which makes climate change a deeper problem of inequality, he added.

The UNEP report concluded that to adapt to climate change, the world would need nearly three times more than the 70 to 100 billion dollars a year estimated up to now.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

Assembly line at Hyundai Motor Company’s car factory in Ulsan, South Korea. Credit: Taneli Rajala/CC by 3.0

By Michael Renner
WASHINGTON, Sep 12 2012 (IPS)

Following a plunge in output triggered by the global economic crisis, world auto production is roaring back to new peaks.

According to London-based IHS Automotive, global production of passenger vehicles (cars and light trucks) rose from 74.4 million in 2010 to 76.8 million in 2011 —and 2012 may bring an all-time high of 80 million or more vehicles.

Global sales of passenger vehicles increased from 75.4 million to 78.6 million over the same period, with a projected 81.8 million in 2012.

The major driver of increased production and sales are the so-called emerging economies, especially China.

Rising sales translate into ever-expanding fleets. An estimated 691 million passenger cars were on the world’s roads in 2011. When both light- and heavy-duty trucks are included, the number rises to 979 million vehicles, which was 30 million more than just a year earlier. By the end of 2012, the global fleet could top one billion vehicles—one for every seven people on the planet.

The vast majority of light vehicles produced have conventional types of propulsion systems, either gasoline or diesel-powered combustion engines. Hybrid vehicles are growing in number, but they remain below two percent of total vehicle output.

In 2011, just over 400,000 Toyota Priuses, by far the best-selling hybrid, were purchased. Altogether Toyota has sold four million hybrids since 1997, of which the Prius accounts for 2.9 million.

Electric vehicle (EV) production remains at barely perceptible levels. Although several countries have issued targets for future EV fleets, it remains to be seen whether these goals can be met.

China, for instance, wants to put five million plug-in hybrid-electric and fully electric vehicles on its roads by 2020 – which could account for more than 40 percent of the global EV fleet that year. An analysis by Deutsche Bank Climate Advisors, however, suggests that production of 1.1 million EVs and a fleet of 3.5 million in China is a more realistic projection.

Automobiles are major contributors to air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Greater fuel efficiency, along with the use of cleaner fuels, can help mitigate these impacts, although increases in the numbers of cars and the distances driven threaten to overwhelm fuel economy advances.

In August 2012, the Barack Obama administration issued new rules that require U.S. auto manufacturers to increase the average efficiency of new cars and trucks to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.

The new rules, aimed at reducing fuel consumption and cutting greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles, will increase pressure on automakers to develop more alternative-fuel vehicles, such as electric and plug-in hybrid cars, as well as improve the mileage of their mass-market models by developing better engines and using lighter materials.

An improvement is urgently needed, especially in view of the fact that U.S. fuel efficiency lags badly behind not only Japan and the European Union, but also China.

Discussions about reducing the environmental impacts of vehicles tend to focus on technical improvements, such as engines, aerodynamic design, and fuels – yet another concern is the distances traveled.

Even though the United States has just 25 percent of the total population of the group of wealthy nations known as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), in 2008 it alone accounted for just over 40 percent of the 10.3 trillion passenger-kilometres driven in all OECD member countries.

Still, U.S. car travel is down slightly from its peak of 4.3 trillion passenger kilometres in 2005, to 4.1 trillion passenger kilometres in 2008.

Although standards such as the ones issued by the Obama administration are important steps needed to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, it will take a real change in car ownership and usage behaviour to drive down global greenhouse gas emissions.

And there is no getting around the fact that we need to create a more balanced transportation system less centred on private motor vehicles and more reliant on public transportation systems.

*Michael Renner is a Senior Researcher at the Washington-based Worldwatch Institute.