Ambassador Lumumba Di-Aping, the chief negotiator of the G77 group of developing nations, described the proposed budget as ‘insignificant’.

“It is not only insignificant, but it has actually shown the mistrust of EU leaders in addressing climate change. There is a serious deficit of leadership in the EU”, Di-Aping added.

Apparently the less-affluent EU countries are reluctant to participate in costly emission cuts or to contribute to a fund intended to help developing nations address climate change.

The G77 is pressing the EU and other industrialised countries for more upfront funding and for assurances about long-term financing for climate change adaptation and mitigation.

The UNFCCC Executive Secretary, Yvo de Boer, however, thought the proposed budget could positively influence the negotiation process.

“The fact that Europe is going to put a figure on the table will, I think, be hugely encouraging to the process,” said de Boer.

Meanwhile the Pan-African Parliamentary Network on Climate Change (PAPNCC) expressed concern about the lack of progress in the negotiations.

“We wish to caution the industrialised countries that this is the last chance to act unselfishly to ensure that future generations have a cooler world to live in”,  Awudu Mbaya Cyprian, the PAPNCC president, told reporters.

The PAPNCC said: “Developed counties created the climate crisis as they became wealthy and they have the financial resources to tackle it. This gives them a double duty to act. Developed countries must compensate Africa”.

According to PAPNCC, over 70 per cent of CO2 from industrial sources is emitted by the 20 per cent of people living in the industrialised world, whereas Africa’s emissions account for less than four per cent.

The Foreign Affairs Minister, Ojo Madueke, said on 17 December in Copenhagen, Denmark, that the nation was financing its gas flareout drive through the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). He was speaking at the high-level session of  the UN climate change conference.

A major feature of the Kyoto Protocol, the global treaty on tackling climate change, the CDM allows reductions in greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO2) which are achieved by projects in developing countries to be sold to developed countries to help them to meet their emission limits.

When the idea of including gas flaring in the CDM was mooted several years ago it was roundly criticised by experts, who claimed that flaring violates the rights of local people and is a criminal act that should not earn anyone a profit.

But Madueke said on 17 December that the government’s gas master plan, including an end to flaring, would be implemented together with the National Adaptation Strategy on climate change.

He said: “We have chosen the facilities of the market in dealing with the challenge of the climate crisis by putting a price on carbon arising from gas flaring. Such a market approach will shift the emphasis away from investment in high carbon content assets and activities in Nigeria to a green economy over time. Indeed, a bill for an Act of the National Assembly in 2010 to end gas flaring has had its third reading.”

Describing the CDM as “a beacon of hope as we make gas flaring history in Nigeria,” Madueke regretted that existing CDM projects in Africa were not up to five per cent of the worldwide total. He called for an expansion so that “we can leverage on them to achieve level status for gas flaring in Nigeria.”

Two out of Nigeria’s three CDM schemes involve the use of hitherto flared gas found during oil drilling. They are the Kwale Gas Project and the Pan Ocean Gas Utilisation Project, located in Kwale and Ovade-Ogharafe (both in Delta State) respectively.

The Pan Ocean scheme will cut emissions by an estimated two million tons of CO2 annually, and the credits will be sold to Nuon, a Dutch state utility. The carbon emission reductions that occur in Nigeria will help the Netherlands meet its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol.

The third CDM project is the Save80 fuel-efficient wood stove, which aims to reduce by 80 per cent the amount of wood needed for cooking, so slowing the rate of desertification.

In a related development the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, declared in Copenhagen that transparency was vital to any agreement that the US would accept at the summit.

“All countries need to reach for common ground,” she said, calling for decisive national action and an international accord, and stating that assistance would be made available for adaptation and tackling deforestation.

Clinton underscored the US’s emissions reductions pledge “in the range of 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020,” which would be succeeded by 30 per cent below 2005 by 2025; 42 per cent by 2030; and over 80 per cent by 2050.

She called for generous financial support to help mitigation efforts in developing countries: $10 billion by 2012, rising to $100 billion a year by 2020.

Nigerian Foreign Affairs Minister, Ojo Madueke, has said that a new date to end gas flaring in the country will be announced in the next few days.

Madueke, who spoke on Tuesday at the “Nigerian Climate Change Investment Forum” in Copenhagen , Denmark , promised that his government would no more change its position.

He promised, “we will make a fair commitment on ending gas flaring in the next few days before the international community, and we will deliver this time around.”

During a presentation to open the day-long event, he said that Nigeria would utilise the challenges posed by climate change to diversify the economy from an oil dependant one.

The minister, who is representing President Umar Yar’ Adua at the climate summit, noted that while making the most of the proceeds from fossil fuel (oil), Nigeria would vigorously pursue green technology that will ensure revenue from sources other than petroleum.

He described climate change and its accompanying effects as an apocalypse, and called for urgent actions to address the outcome of the phenomenon.

And speaking at the same occasion, Minister of Petroleum, Dr. Rilwan Lukman, said the world has responsibility to ensure a sustainable environment  for the survival of mankind including future generations.

“The environment is the common heritage of mankind,” he said, and urged both developed and developing countries to reach a compromise and come up with a viable agreement to save the earth from environmental destruction.

“We would like to see more positive commitment and cooperation from the United States of America . COP15 must succeed. G77, China and Africa Group must cooperate to reach a consensus,” he pleaded.

Another Nigerian official, Timpre Sylva, the Bayelsa State Governor, disclosed that the Nigerian state had begun to feel the impact of climate change such as frequent flooding.
“ Bayelsa State happens to be one of the states below sea level. We know that most of the problems of climate are due to the activities of the west, and so we have come to tell the polluters, who have caused these problems, to come to Nigeria and Bayelsa State to invest in cleaner energy,” he added.

No fewer that two state governors took the stage to address a range of issues touching on sustainable development, even as the summit headed through  its second and final week.

Delta State Governor Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan is part of a panel of leaders, the Climate Leaders Summit 2009, that tabled the controversial topic of low carbon technology.

The group is a forum for the exchange of practical policy advice between government heads and business leaders of some of the world’s leading low carbon technology companies and financial institutions.

While corporate leaders are expected to announce investments in – and deployment of – new energy technologies, policymakers will likely proclaim policies that will encourage the introduction of key clean energy technology infrastructure.

They are however expected to demonstrate how they are working together to build the low carbon economy of the future.

Similarly, Cross River’s Governor Liyel Imoke unveiled his efforts towards a Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) programme for Nigeria.

A way of compensating poor countries to protect their forests, REDD allows countries that can reduce emissions from deforestation to be paid for doing so.

There is concern that over 90 per cent of Nigeria ’s forests have already gone.  More than half of what remains is found in Cross River State. The forest is considered to be one of the richest biodiversity reserves in Africa.

State Forestry Commission chair Odigha Odigha said the governor’s main goal in Denmark was to look for donor commitment for a REDD readiness programme for Nigeria.

On Tuesday the Nigerian delegation also hosted a forum on climate change investment opportunities, where Foreign Affairs Minister Ojo Maduakwe, Environment Minister John Odey, and Power Minster of State Nuhu Somo Way were resource persons.

Odey’s aide, Rotimi Ajayi, said the event would highlight how Nigeria could tap the potential for sustainable economic development in the country.

The Africa Group at the ongoing climate talks in Copenhagen, Denmark has tabled an initial demand of $30 billion to tackle damages done to the environment across the globe by climate change. The group has further recommended that 40 per cent of this money be allocated to Africa where many poor countries are adversely affected by the effects of climate change.

It has also been suggested by the group that the start-up funding, which would span three years from 2010-2012, should be a yearly release of $10 billion.

The money will be used to address urgent adaptation and mitigation tasks such as deforestation. It will also be used to prepare plans for future programmes to address the impact of climate chage.

Speaking on Wednesday on behalf of the group, Ethiopian leader Meles Zenawi, suggested that the funding should be put in a trust fund to be administered by a board of trustees composed of an equal number of donor and recipient countries.

While requesting that 40 per cent of the fund be earmarked for Africa and administered by the Africa Development Bank, Zenawi sought the establishment of a committee of experts to work out necessary details on how to administer the fund.

On long-term financing, he proposed that this should start by 2013 to reach up to $50 billion per annum by 2015 and $100 billion per annum by 2020.

He said, “No less that 50 per cent of the fund should be allocated for adaptation to vulnerable and poor countries and regions such as Africa and the small island states.”

He added that the facility should be financed through reliable financing mechanisms such as taxes.

In a related development, the Group of 77 Nations and China declared that a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol needed to be established beyond 2012 as the basis for comparable emission reduction commitments among all developed country parties.

Dr. Nafie Ali Nafie, Head of the Sudanese delegation, who also spoke on behalf of the group, said, “We will oppose an agreement in Copenhagen which, in anyway, results in the Kyoto protocol being superseded or made redundant. The second commitment period under the protocol is a minimum requirement for the group, without which agreement in Copenhagen will not be possible.”

Nafie added that the group supported the bottom-up and party-driven process, adding that it allowed a balanced consideration of issues and enabled all parties to participate and bring in their interests and concerns regarding the expected outcome of Copenhagen .

Meanwhile, as part of efforts to tackle environmental devastation arising from climate change, the Delta State Government on Wednesday joined forces with the United Nations at the Convention.

At a brief ceremony, Delta state officials, led by Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) under the latter’s Territorial Approach to Climate Change (TACC) initiative. The TACC is designed to assist developing sub-national governments to assess and manage the physical and socio-economic impact of climate change. By becoming part of the UNDP TACC programme, Delta will deepen its capacity to regulate environmental issues, as well as to take advantage of many new sources of environmental funds to implement climate change responses.

Governor Uduaghan signed on behalf of the state government, while Mr. Olav Kjorven, UN Assistant Secretary General and Director Bureau of Development Policy, UNDP, New York, signed on behalf of the world body.

Speaking shortly after the signing ceremony, Uduaghan described the partnership with the UNDP as a milestone which he said would assist the state government develop capacity to assess the level of environmental damage caused by oil pollution and rising water level.

He said that Delta, being a coastal state, was particularly vulnerable to sea water rise and therefore had to seek ways to collaborate with international organisations to develop the strategy to analyse the present and future vulnerability of the state.

Uduaghan added that the TACC programme would also assist in carrying out a comprehensive environmental diagnosis on emissions, gas flares, land use, atmospheric temperature, ecosystem and afforestation issues.

Seven individuals from Australia , France , Sweden and the US are hungry for climate justice, but have vowed  not to take a single bite until 18 December, when they hope a legally-binding climate resolution will be reached by negotiators at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen (known as COP-15).

Essentially, the strikers want to see a resolution that recognises the need to keep atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations below 350 parts per million.

Five of the seven fasters actually began their strikes more than a month ago on 6 November, at the final UN climate talks before Copenhagen that took place in Barcelona. Two additional activists joined in later in November.

All are following in the footsteps of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and other notable political activists who went on hunger strikes to draw attention to their causes. But this uses tools they never had -  the internet, blogs, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and other media outlets.

These efforts are apparently working, as over 100 people from 14 countries have begun their own hunger strikes, ranging from one day to three weeks in length.

Ted Glick, a New Jersey policy director and Jen Rowe, a Vermont university student, began their fast across the street from the UN building in New York City, while Sandeep Srivastava is fasting with his organisation in Lucknow, India.

Oxford University graduate Dominic Rowland and project manager Howard Balmer are fasting in London ’s Parliament Square , while a Filipino International Youth Council Director, Esperenza Garcia, has embarked on a rolling fast.

The fasters’ website ClimateJusticeFast.com lists the rationale for the hunger strike as follows: “We are offering the strongest form of moral protest against climate inaction, and standing up for true climate justice. We call on both the global public and their political representatives to fulfil their moral responsibility to halt and reverse climate change, and to protect the world’s most vulnerable people and our children from its effects.”

Daniel Lau, a Hong Kong-born Australian studying in Denmark, began fasting on 13 November and plans not to eat until the end of COP-15. So far he has subsisted on water and salts for nearly a month. But even though he isn’t eating, he is still in high spirits, though admittedly delirious at times.

Nonetheless, he still cooks for others and tries to maintain his high spirits. On his blog, Lau wrote: “I am not an activist. So why am I on a hunger strike?”

He answered the question quite simply: “Building a climate movement is a complicated process. But finding an opportunity for individual action and acting on it was surprisingly straightforward.”

But other members of the group take a more aggressive approach. “This is a political cop-out”, 23-year-old Australian hunger-striker Anna Keenan said. “The nations negotiating within the UN framework have been delaying real action on climate change for the last 15 years.”

“Whether it’s engaging in civil disobedience, joining our hunger strike, or something as simple as calling your political representatives, or writing letters, we need people to get active”, said Keenan. “Every year of political delay brings scientific tipping points closer.”

Observers believe that even though the strikes may not have the desired effect on the actions of politicians and negotiators in Copenhagen , they may achieve the goal of drawing global media attention to the activists’ cause.

The two-week conference, the climax of two years of contentious negotiations, convened against the backdrop of a series of promises by rich and emerging economies to curb their greenhouse gases (GHGs), but with major issues yet to be resolved.

Denmark’s former climate minister and conference president, Connie Hedegaard, said the key to an agreement was finding a way to raise and channel public and private financing to poor countries for years to come to help them fight the effects of climate change.

According to her, if governments missed their chance at Copenhagen, a better opportunity might never arise. “This is our chance. If we miss it, it could take years before we get a new and better one – if we ever do”, she said.

Lars Lokke Rasmussen, Denmark ‘s prime minister, said 110 heads of state and government would attend the final days of the conference. Observers believe that President Barack Obama’s decision to attend the end of the conference, not the middle, was a signal that an agreement was getting closer.

The conference opened with video clips of children from around the globe urging delegates to help them grow up in a world without catastrophic warming.

At stake is a deal that aims to wean the world away from fossil fuels and other pollutants to greener sources of energy, and to transfer hundreds of billions of dollars from rich to poor countries every year over decades to help them adapt to climate change.

Scientists say without such an agreement the Earth will face the consequences of ever-rising temperatures, leading to the extinction of plant and animal species, the flooding of coastal cities, more extreme weather events, drought and the spread of diseases.

“The evidence is now overwhelming” that the world needs early action to combat global warming, said Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

He defended climate research in the face of a controversy over e-mails pilfered from a British university, which global warming sceptics say show scientists have been conspiring to hide evidence that doesn’t fit their theories.

“The recent incident of stealing the e-mails of scientists at the University of East Anglia shows that some would go to the extent of carrying out illegal acts, perhaps in an attempt to discredit the IPCC”, he declared.

Negotiations have dragged on for two years, only recently showing signs of breakthroughs with new commitments from the US, China and India to control greenhouse gas emissions.

“The time for formal statements is over. The time for restating well-known positions is past,” said the UN’s top climate official, Yvo de Boer. ” Copenhagen will only be a success it delivers significant and immediate action.”

Among those decisions is a proposed fund of $10 billion each year for the next three years to help poor countries create climate change strategies. After that, hundreds of billions of dollars will be needed every year to set the world on a new energy path and adapt to new climates.

“The deal that we invite leaders to sign up on will be one that affects all aspects of society, just as the changing climate does,” said Rasmussen. “Negotiators cannot do this alone, nor can politicians. The ultimate responsibility rests with the citizens of the world, who will ultimately bear the fatal consequences if we fail to act.”

Promoters of the Building Nigeria’s Response to Climate Change (BNRCC) initiative have  inaugurated research aimed at ensuring that people affected can cope with the challenges ahead.

The BNRCC is an initiative of the Nigeria Environmental Society Action Team (NEST). A typical project is Adaptation to Climate Variability: A Case Study of Farming Households in the Niger Delta Region.

Co-ordinated by the Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension, University of Uyo, in Akwa Ibom State, it is examining how vulnerable households in the region are adapting to variations in climate.

Another scheme is assessing gender knowledge and awareness as well as vulnerability and strategies to adapt  to the impacts of climate change in northern Nigeria. In some states religious groups are taking the initiative in trying to help people to cope by learning how to become less vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

Similarly, three bodies – CERCOPAN (the Centre for Education, Research and Conservation of Primates and Nature) and two non-governmental organisations, the Mission of Coastal Life Initiative, and Development in Nigeria – are jointly working on alternative livelihood options as a means of promoting community-based adaptation to climate change in the coastal and rainforest zones of Nigeria.

A project that covers two communities in Bauchi State and one in Jigawa State aims to increase the sustainable food security of vulnerable people in fragile ecologies.

The chairman of NEST, Professor David Okali, said in his welcome address at the launch of the scheme that responding to climate change required being responsible in the face of its challenges, while exploring its opportunities.

Dr. Ako Amadi, from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA),  said Nigeria must play a key role at the climate change conference in Copenhagen in December because it was vulnerable to the effects of a warming world.

The Programme Director of BNRCC, Dr. Emmanuel Nzegbule, urged media executives to focus more on climate change issues, because information about them was not readily available in the language the public would understand.

“As part of a proactive strategy to address the emerging threats posed by the impact of climate change, BNRCC strongly recommends that federal, state and local governments take seriously the issue of climate change in all components of governance.

“The media… has a crucial role to play in raising awareness and providing accurate information on this issue.”

The BNRCC project aims to help build informed responses to climate change by enhancing capacity at the community, state and national levels to implement effective adaptation strategies, policies and actions.

BNRCC is funded by CIDA, and  implemented in partnership with NEST. Its goal is to reduce poverty and improve living conditions for Nigerians through better climate change adaptation strategies.

In an interview recently in Abuja, Fodeke said  the widely-held notion that the country lacked a plan was untrue. He said: “Nigeria’s national action plan on climate change is a product of intensive consultation, with input from strategic stakeholders including various ministries and academia.

“The campaign suggesting that we don’t have a national agenda is a product of the divide-and-rule tactics introduced by the developed countries to weaken the negotiations of developing countries who are already feeling the impact of climate change.’’

He said Nigeria was a leading voice among the G77+ China negotiating bloc, defending her interest and that of other developing countries, as well as demanding compensation from the developed countries whose activities had caused the change in global climatic conditions.

Fodeke said it was unfortunate that some Nigerians were allowing themselves to be used to champion the campaign of calumny started by the developed countries at the recent Bangkok climate talks.

“As a developing country, we are firmly committed to the stand of the G77+ China and will continue to resist any attempt by the developed countries and their agents to undermine our interest,” he added.

The nation’s climate chief alleged that the developed countries were interested in killing the global climate treaty, the Kyoto Protocol.

“The Kyoto Protocol is the only legal instrument that compelled developed countries, known as Annex I countries, to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and fund environment-friendly projects in developing countries,” he said.

Fodeke said attempts to jettison the Protocol were in the interest neither of Nigeria nor of developing countries, hence their resolve to stick together to resist as a bloc in the negotiations under the auspices of both the G77+ China and the African groups.

Communities in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa and Asia are the first beneficiaries of a scheme to provide payments for measuring how land and vegetation can absorb carbon, one of the key factors causing climate change.

The Carbon Benefits Project has been devised by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). It is a test-bed for calculating how much carbon can be stored in trees and soils when the land is managed in sustainable, climate-friendly ways.

The pilot scheme began several months ago with a focus on settlements in Nigeria and Niger in West Africa, Kenya in East Africa, and China.

UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner, announcing the scheme on 24 August at the opening of the 2nd World Agroforestry Congress in Nairobi, Kenya, said the initiative was still being fine-tuned.

He said: “The missing link is a standardised way of assessing how much carbon is actually locked away in vegetation and in soils under different land management regimes.”

Describing this as the project’s goal, Dr Steiner said preliminary findings would emerge within 18 months. UNEP would also explore why afforestation and reafforestation schemes constituted less than one percent of existing Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects.

This allows industrialised countries to invest in greenhouse gas reduction schemes in developing nations as a cheaper alternative to reducing their own emissions.

The Carbon Benefits Project reinforces the UN’s Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) initiative, which the UNEP head believes should be a key plank of the final agreement at COP-15, the UN climate change conference scheduled for Copenhagen in December.

“Simply locking away forests to secure their carbon…. is almost certainly folly and almost a recipe for disaster,” he said. Dr Steiner said REDD “should and must reflect the genuine needs of the surrounding communities, including indigenous peoples.”

UNEP and other UN agencies, including the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP), are spearheading the REDD programme in nine pilot countries, thanks to funding from Norway.

Apart from combating climate change and accelerating adaptation, Dr Steiner said, an effective REDD could also ensure new global revenue flows.

A G8+5 initiative, the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB), estimates that a $45 billion investment in protected areas can secure nature-based services worth about $5 trillion yearly. The TEEB is a global study which seeks to evaluate the costs of the loss of wildlife and other features of the natural world, and compare them with the cost of effective conservation and sustainable use. It is planning to develop “a valuation toolkit”.

The relatively modest expenditure on protecting features like forests and wetlands would, according to TEEB (whose secretariat UNEP hosts), pay vastly greater dividends in ensuring that they could continue to play their part in maintaining a healthy environment.

While trees store carbon, wetlands can help to purify water and to provide protection against floods and droughts.

Agroforestry, Dr Steiner predicted, might play numerous roles “in this new landscape of rewarding countries for their natural or nature-based services.”

He stressed that, as well as maximising sustainable food production and offering opportunities for timber production and alternative livelihoods, agroforestry could, through the Carbon Benefits Project, secure flows from carbon finance.

But he wants the area of insurance to be tidied up. “The insurance industry manages risk reasonably well in timber plantations, but seems less well geared to natural forests or farmland ones”, he said.