At the opening plenary of the Climate Change Summit COP-26 hosted by the British government in Glasgow, Scotland, Nigeria President, Muhammadu Buhari took a swipe at the rich nations of the world as he asked them to walk their talk by following through with their pledges.
Buhari said Africa has very low emission and should not bear the brunt of the rich nations of the world who are shying away from responsibility. Africa has just 5% of the world’s global emissions while the combination of Russia and China have almost 20% of the world’s total CO2 emission.
The rich nations of the world pledged $100bn to developing nations to help them battle climate change but not much has been done in that regard. Buhari described the pledge as “hollow” and said “it’s high time they walked their talk.”
“The USD 100 billion every year to developing countries signed onto from the Paris 2016 climate change accords, as a promise made by the developed countries, has so far proved to be hollow.”
In the statement released by the President’s media office, Buhari expressed his disappointment with the failure of the Chinese and Russian governments to come to the summit and agree to cut their carbon emissions.
He said African countries will need critical infrastructure to deal with the problem creditably as the world looks to achieve a net zero ambition for greenhouse emissions.
“President Buhari’s speech which centred on a number of issues agitating Africa and the developing countries, criticised the rich countries, the major emitters which brought the world’s climate to this sorry state for making promises toward climate finance that till date, have remained hollow, ” the statement said.
“The President told world leaders that the goal of transitioning from fossil fuel to clean energy, reaching a Net zero ambition for green house emission would require critical infrastructure to be in place in developing countries.
“Parties to the Paris Agreement are expected to transition from fossil fuel to clean energy and reach a Net Zero ambition for greenhouse gases emission.
“We agree that Net Zero ambition can lead to economic transformation across all sectors. It is a good ambition, but it requires critical infrastructure in place, including for renewable energy. Therefore, in Nigeria, it will take us longer time to get to Net Zero,” he declared.