Nigeria Pledges To Keep Multilateral Environmental Agreements
Zeniat Abubakar Abuja
The Federal government of Nigeria says it is determined to ensure that Nigeria continues to honour all multilateral environmental agreements without compromising the sovereignty of the country.
Nigeria’s Minister of State for Environment Dr Iziaq Salako, stated this at the opening of the high level plenary of the 16th meeting of the Conference of Parties, CBD COP16, holding in Cali, Colombia.
“I am honored to bring warm greetings to you from Nigeria and and to relay a message of hope for the future as my country identifies with the progress being made towards the protection of our natural world since the adoption of the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. I would like to congratulate Colombia, a leading mega diverse country in the world for hosting this conference in this beautiful city of Santiage de Cali, the Salsa capital of the world.” He said
Dr Salako said that the Nigerian government will not hesitate to implement decisions that will be adopted in the meeting.
“We are reaching the completion of the adoption of an updated National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans, NBSAP which provides a clear and ambitious roadmap towards the preservation and recovery of our natural resources. We are also strengthening our national capacity to protect nature through other policies, action plans and legislative framework.”
Dr Salako said Nigeria is leading the way with sister ECOWAS Nations to ensure the implementation of 30 by 30, stressing that Nigeria and the ECOWAS sub region are on a clear path to secure effective protection of 30% of the ECOWAS region by 2030.
“My country and the ECOWAS subregion is also united behind prompt ratification of the new high-seas treaty with 9 out of the 15 ECOWAS countries having signed this new treaty.”
“Nigeria is coordinating to jointly seek the designation of the first generation of highly and fully protected marine protected areas in the high-seas. We are also uniting to launch a coordinated action to combat illegal and unsustainable exploitation of threatened wild species.” He said.
He further stressed that the ECOWAS subregion is ready to work with leaders around the world on the development of mechanisms to advance equitable accountability for truly global action on halting and reversing deforestation and forest degradation by 2030.
“We need true partnership between Global North and Global South to meet these goals.
“We are doing everything we can because we are clearly running out of time. Our ecosystems are being drained of their ability to support us, and we can not be passive spectators as the crisis unfolds in front of us. This is why I am concerned that our efforts continue to be compromised by significant delays in the allocation of financial resources. “
“Ambition for Nature cannot be dissociated from Ambition for Nature finance, the two go hand in hand. If we don’t deliver on nature finance, the commitments we made in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework will remain empty aspirations.” He explained.
According to him, “Our global community committed in target 19 (a) of KMGBF to allocate at least USD20 billion per year by 2025 and USD30 billion per year by 2030 to developing countries for nature finance.
Delivering 20 billion in biodiversity finance to the global south is a modest step in the right direction.
However, the world is clearly not on track to achieve these commitments.”
Oyenike Oyeniyi
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