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Targets low-carbon growth, green energy, and climate resilience by 2060

Enugu State Governor, Dr. Peter Mbah, has inaugurated a 29-member committee to implement the Enugu State Climate Policy and Action Plan (ESCPAP), marking another decisive step in the state’s climate leadership journey.

Inaugurating the committee on Friday at the Government House, Enugu, Mbah said that the initiative was in demonstration of the administration’s unwavering commitment to tackling the global climate crisis through local solutions and sustainable development strategies.

According to the governor, who was represented by the Secretary to the State Government, Prof Chidiebere Onyia, the ESCPAP, which was launched on March 17, 2025, provides a comprehensive framework to promote low-carbon economic growth, cut greenhouse gas emissions, and build resilience against climate impacts.

“This plan positions Enugu as a leading subnational player in climate governance and sustainability across Africa,” he said.

The governor explained that the newly inaugurated committee would provide strategic oversight, coordination, and technical guidance for the effective implementation of the policy, adding that “The committee will ensure the successful delivery of climate mitigation, adaptation, finance mobilisation, and monitoring in line with state, national, and global climate commitments.”

Outlining its major responsibilities, Mbah said the committee would drive sectoral coordination across all relevant ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs); strengthen climate governance; mobilise climate finance through green bonds, carbon markets, and development partnerships; and monitor progress through an established results-based framework.

“Under mitigation, the committee will promote renewable energy, energy efficiency, low-carbon transport systems such as electric and CNG vehicles, sustainable waste management, afforestation, and climate-smart agriculture.

“For adaptation and resilience, the committee will undertake vulnerability assessments, develop local adaptation plans, and implement nature-based solutions for erosion and flood control. It will also promote climate-smart infrastructure, clean cooking technologies, and resilient livelihoods in communities.

“On governance and inclusion, the committee will mainstream climate actions across state policies, ensuring the integration of gender, youth, and disability considerations. It will also intensify climate education, capacity building, and public awareness programmes,” he further stressed.

Governor Mbah maintained that that the committee had been mandated to develop a comprehensive Climate Finance Plan, attract domestic and international funding, and publish its annual progress reports for transparency, accountability and evaluation.

While stating that the committee would brief the State Executive Council quarterly and submit an annual progress report to his office, he urged members to demonstrate professionalism, integrity, transparency, and inclusivity, describing the committee as “a key mechanism for translating Enugu’s climate vision into tangible action.”

Responding on behalf of the committee, the Commissioner for Environment and Climate Change, Prof. Sam Ugwu thanked the governor for the trust reposed in them and pledged that the team would work diligently to deliver meaningful, measurable outcomes for the state.

The 29-member team is chaired by the SSG, with the Commissioner for Environment and Climate Change, Prof. Sam Ugwu, and the Commissioner for Finance, Dr. Nathaniel Urama, serving as first and second vice chairmen, while the Senior Policy Adviser to the Governor on Climate Policy and Sustainable Development, Prof Chukwumerije Okereke, serves as secretary.

Other members include representatives of key MDAs—such as Environment, Energy, Agriculture, Transport, Finance, and Health—alongside academics, civil society groups, youth and women representatives, traditional leaders, and climate finance experts.

As the International Maritime Organization gathers to adopt its Net-Zero Framework, which includes a binding emissions-pricing mechanism, it must begin thinking about how to distribute the resulting revenues equitably. Ideally, the funds would be used to unlock Africa’s green-energy potential.

ABAKALIKI – In early September, African leaders convened in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for the Second Africa Climate Summit, which focused on overcoming the obstacles to climate-resilient development on the continent. In their efforts to devise solutions, drive innovation, and attract financing, these leaders are reshaping global climate action. As part of that process, they are increasingly recognizing that decarbonizing shipping – an industry that generates nearly 3% of global greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions – could be a powerful catalyst for Africa’s green industrialization.

African governments have already emerged as key players in negotiations over reductions in shipping emissions. Earlier this year, they helped secure the approval of the Net-Zero Framework at the International Maritime Organization, the United Nations’ maritime regulator. Included in the framework is the world’s first binding pricing mechanism on GHG emissions from ships. This measure, which the IMO is expected to adopt formally at its upcoming October session, represents an important victory for multilateral climate action and signals the beginning of the end of shipping’s dependence on fossil fuels.

But the real test will be how this pivotal policy is designed and implemented over the next few years. For African governments, the biggest question is how the revenues generated from the IMO’s pricing mechanism, projected to be $10-15 billion per year by 2030, will be used.

If distributed equitably, these funds could help Africa close its huge energy gap, upgrade its port infrastructure and fleets, and invest in transmission networks and grids that could unlock our vast renewable-energy potential, especially in geothermal, wind, and solar. A resilient grid is also essential for the production of renewable hydrogen and other green e-fuels – the most promising long-term clean-energy solution for the shipping industry. This would likely provide a boost to Africa’s existing green-hydrogen projects and spur new ones, in the process accelerating industrialization, boosting GDP, and positioning the continent as a global energy exporter.

Until now, Africa has faced challenges in developing its abundant renewable resources largely because of the high cost of capital. African economies remain weighed down by unsustainable debt burdens and low credit ratings, which make it prohibitively expensive to invest in clean energy. Given the perceived risks, the continent currently receives only around 2% of global investment in renewables. But the revenues raised from the IMO’s new carbon-pricing mechanism could be used to lower initial costs, de-risk clean-energy investments, and pave the way for Africa to power global shipping.

Crucially, the IMO must support this drive to harness Africa’s renewable resources by creating strong incentives for e-fuels. Otherwise, cheaper options such as liquefied natural gas, which is far more destructive to the planet, and crop-based biofuels, which increase pressure on food systems, risk undercutting green hydrogen and impeding African countries’ efforts to achieve sustainable growth and development.

The increased use of biofuels would be particularly catastrophic for African countries. In my country, Nigeria, where millions of people already face acute hunger, diverting crops to create fuel for ships – often carrying goods and supplies bound for wealthy countries – would be both immoral and economically reckless. Generating biofuels would likely worsen food insecurity and increase deforestation, GHG emissions, and land degradation – in some cases, to a greater extent than fossil-fuel production.

Like many other African countries, Nigeria has everything it takes to become a leader in sustainable shipping fuels, including abundant sun and wind, and a young workforce. Now it just needs the right investments. If designed properly, the IMO’s framework could help provide the funds that Africa needs to ramp up its renewable-energy capacity. Failure to create an ambitious, equitable policy risks limiting Africa’s prospects.

As the IMO gathers in London this month to adopt its Net-Zero Framework, African countries must show the same leadership and determination as they did at the Second Africa Climate Summit. Ensuring that the continent reaps the benefits of the IMO’s new mechanism would be a remarkable example of international cooperation. A climate-resilient future is within reach, so long as African voices are heard, and taken seriously, on the global stage.

At the Implementation Lab on Cities at the ongoing Africa Climate Week in Addis Ababa, I joined the session and we reflected on the fact that cities are always at the frontline of the climate crisis, yet they also hold the solutions. Therefore, to unlock the full potential of cities, we must accelerate scalable, implementable actions across urban areas, backed by proper financing, governance capacity, and inclusive leadership.

It is obvious that cities continue to face a financing gap and weak local government capacity that is limiting their ability to take leadership. The people in informal settlements remain highly vulnerable to climate impacts, underscoring the need for inclusive planning. One thing that became clear to us was that ambition alone is not enough but implementation – this remains the true test of leadership for cities.

Several examples were showcased which include: the Durban’s community-based early warning systems to protect vulnerable residents; Dakar’s Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) solutions reducing emissions and improving mobility; Brazil’s “Adapt-a-City” initiative supporting 600 cities; and, Rwanda and Philippines partnerships fostered through the World Resources Institutes’ (WRI) “bringing national and subnational actors together”.

These examples did not just provide hope, but they also led us to some of the key barriers, such as: Sustainability of financing projects; project preparation gaps that hinder access to climate funds, and catalytic funds that are often misdirected to actors without financial expertise – this trend must be corrected.

For effective cities emancipation, key takeaways from the lab are that stronger collaboration between national and subnational governments is important; co-ownership of financial instruments for long-term resilience is ascertained; development partners aligning catalytic finance with real local needs is guaranteed and more importantly, SMEs and community-led groups are included in financing architecture – this is part of our ongoing dedication at the Society for Planet and Prosperity ensuring that the subnational are given adequate chance and recognition.

Therefore, for Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to drive real change, they must be localised. And because the NDCs are political statement of countries, the subnational governments need to be integrated into the process of developing them and national strategic financial frameworks that will enable them to attract sustainable investment outlined and strengthened.

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) and other global financial instruments must provide clear windows for national–subnational–SME collaboration. This is when climate ambition will translate into meaningful and equitable solutions for cities.

By Gboyega Olorunfemi, Senior Policy Analysts, Society for Planet and Prosperity (SPP), Addis Ababa

The abiding vision of COP30 is the Global Mutirão. This concept, birthed by the Brazilian COP30 Presidency, recognises the need for collective action built brick by brick from the local to the national, the regional, and the global. Mutirão therefore places its feet firmly on the grounds that nothing concrete can be attained in the global drive for climate resilience and sustainable growth without collective and collaborative actions.

This perhaps became extremely urgent as the world battled an attack on multilateralism following the change of government in the United States of America, earlier this year. As some are putting a knife on the things that held us together, it became increasingly important that the world rally and bring back that very important spirit of multilateralism as aptly captured by the Mutirão vision.

Significantly, this year too, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) brought back the climate weeks with the first one taking place in Panama. Currently, the second climate week is going on in Ethiopia – the Origin of Life and a significant venue to resurrect the spirit of humanity.

What immediately captures the attention of many participants during the high-level Opening Ceremony is the level of importance given to this by the international community with the event graced by Deputy Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Ms. Noura Hamladji; both High-level Champions for COP29 and COP30, Ms Nigar Arpadarai and Dan Ioschpe respectively; both COP29 and COP30 Youth Champions, Leyla Hasanova and Marcele Oliveira respectively; Chair of the SBI, etc.

Strikingly, the presence of these champions of climate action was underscored by a repetitive call for collaboration.

Accordingly, Ms. Noura Hamladji stressed that there is no solution to climate change at the scale needed without solidarity and enlightened that climate weeks are about harvesting innovation, sharing best practices, and turning pledges into action.

Ms Hamladji’s view was further echoed by the COP29 High-level Champion and Member of Parliament, Ms Nigar Arpadarai, who highlighted the risk of mistrust in the climate change process and why COP29 tried to ensure that the voices of the global south were heard loud and clear. She reiterated that, to succeed, the COP process must reinvent itself all the time and be deeply etched in honesty, humanity, and a deepening of trust.

This overwhelming emphasis on trust, solidarity and collaboration, becomes more significant when one takes into consideration the fact that, for the UNFCCC, the focus for this second climate week is “Finance for Adaptation” – a focus that resonates with African needs and vision which was highlighted by the Chair of the African Group of negotiators, Dr. Richard Muyungi, when he called for COP30 to make the Global Goal on Adaptation work for Africa. This was further backed by the COP30 Youth Champion.

For Oliveira the youths’ focus is on adaptation finance, with the local communities and people directly impacted part of the decision process.

This unified call for adaptation finance remains a key pillar of Africa’s climate demands. But it must come in the form of grants, and not loans disguised as climate finance.

What one then expects is that this rekindling of the spirit of multilateralism must transcend beyond talks to action. There is an urgent need to mount the right pressures and ensure that the right support is delivered to Africa’s most vulnerable. This is critical as we move from Addis to Baku, to Belém, and beyond.

Thankfully, Ethiopia’s efforts at championing homegrown options and showing conscious leadership on climate action, including through its “Green Legacy Initiative” and the targeted generation of over 5,000 MWs of power through its “Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam,” shows Africa’s commitment to champion climate action even as a low-emitting continent. It further sends a message to other African leaders to take up the gauntlet and run with the idea that the continent’s sustainable development is anchored on well-structured climate action.

By Nnaemeka Oruh, Senior Policy Analyst on Climate Change, Society for Planet and Prosperity (SPP), in Addis Ababa