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From Magnus Eze, Enugu
Executive Secretary, United Nations Climate Change (UNFCCC), Patricia Espinosa, has raised the alarm that the world is on track for a global temperature rise of 2.7C – far from the agreed 1.5C goal.
Espinosa said: “Clearly, we are in a climate emergency. Clearly, we need to address it. Clearly, we need to support the most vulnerable to cope. To do so successfully, greater ambition is now critical. We have no choice but to make COP26 a success.”
She called for unity of purpose, noting that participants at the ongoing UN Climate Summit need to leave Glasgow, Scotland, with a balanced package of decisions that reflects the positions of all countries.
A key report from the UN weather agency, WMO, warned that the past seven years are set to be the hottest on record, with the planet heading into “uncharted territory”, thereby raising the stakes for COP26.
Therefore, as the UN Climate Summit, COP26, kicked off in Glasgow on Monday, diplomats and politicians alike increased calls for more action and ambition, to set out new commitments for curbing greenhouse (GHG) emissions and adapt to the impacts of a warming planet.
Prior to this period, in Nigeria, the buildup to the 26th meeting of Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26) was indeed spectacular and novel.
A climate change music concert, otherwise known as Climate Live, was staged at the popular celebrity hangout, Villa Toscana Hotel, Independence Layout, Enugu, ahead of the global conference.
Upcoming artistes, majorly musicians from the South-East, including Kaseklozo, Trap Mike and Shaggyblaq from the University of Nigeria Nsukka, held the ecstatic crowd spellbound at the Enugu concert.
The event was Nigeria’s beat in the series of international concerts in over 20 countries developed by Fridays for Future organizers to shore up the climate change campaign.
Country Representative of Climate Live and National Coordinator of Fridays for Future in Nigeria, Kingsley Odogwu, told Daily Sun that essence of the music concert was to use the power of music to gather people together, especially young people, to engage them in the peaceful and global campaign for climate justice.
It was gathered that the simultaneous global concerts that started on Saturday, October 16 and came to a close with the Nigeria edition on Saturday, October 30, is intended to let world leaders know that more must be done to protect the planet and those who are experiencing the devastating effects of the crisis every day.
According to Odogwu, the aim of Climate Live was to enlarge the global movement by engaging with a new audience through music, raise awareness of the challenges faced today by people on the front line of ecological breakdown, and the predictions by scientists for the future, as well as to pressure world leaders (political, economic and cultural) to take action to combat the climate crisis.
He said that the music concert campaign aims at stopping fossil fuels and build up to 100 per cent renewable energy, genuinely protect forests, oceans and nature, legislate to stop banks and investors from funding climate-wrecking industries, invest in climate resilient livelihoods and to act now to reverse biodiversity loss and reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by no later than 2030.
Odogwu explained that Enugu was chosen for this edition of the concert in order to shift grounds from the already swelled music choice locations to the South-East that has not been densely as a concert destination and from where the message of the climate live could transmit higher.
“The climate crisis are threats to humanity and security and so the young people all over the world are coming together to fight the cankerworm called climate change because if nothing is done, we stand the risk of losing our lives and even the planet,” Odogwu said.
He stated that Climate Live is a pressure on world leaders, not just to talk in Glasgow and go, but to implement the decisions that will be reached at the conference when they get back to their various countries.
He also urged Nigerians to help in creating more ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) as well as recognise that the emergency has arisen from global and work towards systemic change to protect life on earth.
Aware that no corner of the globe is immune from the devastating consequences of climate change, Climate Alive Nigeria Country Rep, called on every one at the concert, to join the global fight for climate justice to save the Earth from a total collapse.
