DEVELOPING countries that show strong leadership in tackling climate change could benefit from a pot of 70 million euros of funding.
Coming under the Nationally Appropriate Mitigating Actions (NAMA), designed to support developing countries that show strong leadership in tackling climate change and want to implement the facility, Germany and the United Kingdom announced the launch of the NAMA facility at COP18/CMP8.
The two countries will jointly provide about 70 million euros of funding for the facility, which aims to support partner countries to implement ambitious action against climate change.
Civil society groups say that Nigeria may not be eligible for the fund as country's document on NAMA is yet to be finalised, though a stakeholders' validation forum was held some months ago in Abuja. The NAMA refers to a set of policies and actions countries undertake as part of a commitment to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emission.
"The government must also ensure that the final policy documents are evidence-based. Regrettably, the country is yet to complete important analysis that allows policies that are fit for purpose to emerge. For instance, the base year for the most recent greenhouse gas emission inventory is the year 2000. Without a valid emission inventory and analysis of least cost abatement options, the basis for developing NAMAs will be weak," Nigeria Climate Action Network (Nigeriacan), a coalition of groups and individuals in Nigeria working to promote government and individual actions to combat climate change said recently.
The German Environment Minister, Peter Altmaier, said: "With the today's launched NAMA facility, we stress our commitment to seriously tackle global warming with innovative financing instruments."
Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change in the UK, Edward Davey added: "Climate change is a global threat and with every passing year, the nature and the extent of that threat grows clearer.
"Climate finance is fundamental to building resilience and capacity for countries to mitigate and adapt to climate change. I'm delighted to announce today a joint partnership with the German Government to help support those developing countries that are taking ambitious action to close the gap to 2°C."
