Barely three months to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Copenhagen, Denmark, Nigeria does not have a clear position on the key issues nor a negotiating team for her interests at the convention, said Ewah Eleri, the executive director of the Abuja based International Centre for Energy, Environment, and Development (ICEED).
"Nigeria is a signatory to the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol and our officials attend most negotiation meetings, but we neither have a negotiating team nor a position," said Mr. Eleri.
Government gets serious
About ten years ago, most countries joined an international treaty, the UNFCCC, to start talks on what can be done to reduce global warming and cope with whatever temperature rises that are unavoidable. Recently, a group of nations added the Kyoto Protocol, which is more powerful and legally binding, to the treaty. According to Mr. Eleri, the Nigerian government is increasingly getting serious on the issue of climate change.
"Unfortunately, we started very late and part of the circumstance that we have now is we have not been able to develop our national position for the negotiations in Copenhagen," he said.
"And even if we have, we've not been able to put them on the public domain so the Nigerian people would know what we are negotiating on their behalf," said Mr. Eleri.
The Kyoto Protocol to prevent climate changes and global warming comes up in 2012. To ensure that the targets for the protocol are met, a round of negotiations had been scheduled to discuss the critical issues and renew the need for new climate protocol.
Convention may end in deadlock
"If they have their way, it is more or less certain that the talks in December that are supposed to set the post 2012 path will end in deadlock," said Nnimmo Bassey, the executive director of Environmental Rights Action (ERA).
Mr. Bassey said some of the key tactics of developed countries include a reclassification of developing countries and the setting of emissions cut targets for developing countries, especially India and China.
"With the global notoriety of gas flaring in Nigeria, it must take extra boldness to canvass such a position in an international arena such as that provided by the climate talks," the ERA director said.
Never too late to start
The first round of negotiations this year was held in Bonn, Germany, between March 29 - April 8. The second took place June 1 - 12. Informal consultations took place in Bonn, between August 10 and 14. Prior to the Copenhagen conference, two further sessions will be held: Bangkok, Thailand, between September 28 and October 9; and Barcelona, Spain, from November 2 to 6.
"What we do today to prepare Nigeria for Copenhagen is better than what we didn't do all these years," said Mr. Eleri.
According to Mr. Eleri, the deadline for the submission of countries' national positions was June 17, this year.
"We have missed the deadline but it can be done in one or three months. We can have a team. It is still possible and I believe if the media can put in more pressure, we can do it," he said.
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