Nigeria Times

The Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders in Nigeria (CACLN), on Thursday, held a peaceful protest to the Presidential Villa demanding for Godwin Emefiele’s dismissal as Central Bank of Nigeria Governor.

The protesters lamented Emefiele’s policy summersaults and inconsistencies that have hurt the country’s economy in unimaginable ways and made it a laughing stock in the comity of nations.

They also bemoaned Emefiele’s foray into partisan politics, expending billions from the CBN’s vaults to achieve his selfish interest.

A statement by the convener, Dauda Yakubu, described the CBN governor as an economic saboteur without the moral right and strength of character to superintend over the affairs of the Central Bank of Nigeria.

He added that the naira redesign and withdrawal limits was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“We know that the CBN governor introduced the naira redesign as a medium to cover up for some of the anomalies he perpetuated in office. Consequently, several billions of naira were expended for changing the colour of some naira denominations,” he said.

“Godwin Emefiele is an economic saboteur that should be arrested and prosecuted for fraud, diversion of government funds, perpetuating unwholesome practices in the Forex management in the country and other acts too numerous to mention.

“The recent revelations regarding the stamp duties account indeed bring to the fore why Godwin Emefiele must be relieved of his appointment as the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria.

“He lacks the moral right and strength of character to superintend over the affairs of the Central Bank of Nigeria. He is morally bankrupt and on the verge of plunging the country into an unimaginable economic crisis. His voodoo economic policies have brought woes and untold hardship to the country. Nigeria cannot afford to have the likes of Godwin Emefiele occupy any position of authority in the country, talk more of staying in office as the Central Bank Governor.

“Godwin Emefiele has bled the country through his nefarious activities that date back to the Goodluck Jonathan era, where he superintended over shady deals that almost crippled the country’s economy.

“In the struggle against corrupt and incompetent leaders in Nigeria, my comrades, we stand united to ensure that Godwin Emefiele is relieved of his appointment as Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
We are aware of many unanswered questions concerning what happened to monies realized through the federal government stamp duty fees. We are also aware that there are spirited efforts by Godwin Emefiele and his goons to kill the agitation in the media, with hundreds of millions of naira earmarked for that purpose.”

They, therefore, demanded that Godwin Emefiele be relieved of his appointment, investigated and made to face the full wrath of the law for “causing so much harm to the economy of Nigeria through the implementation of dubious and abracadabra policies that favour him, his cronies and his political patrons”.

Yakubu added: “We are calling on the President and Commander-in-Chief to wield the big stick and save the country from further disintegration as a result of the ignoble activities of Godwin Emefiele at the Central Bank of Nigeria.

“We also call on the security agencies to launch a full-scale investigation into the operations of the Central Bank of Nigeria from 2014 to date to unravel the rot in the system. Nigeria deserves better leaders to actualize our hopes and aspirations.”

By He Yin, People’s Daily

“We will do our best to provide support and assistance to fellow developing countries through the Belt and Road Initiative International Green Development Coalition and the Kunming Biodiversity Fund, so as to elevate global biodiversity governance to a new height,” Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a speech he made recently.

Xi delivered the speech via video link at the opening ceremony of the high-level segment of the second part of the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) held in Montreal, Canada, on the evening of Dec. 15, 2022.

In his speech, Xi stressed the necessity to build global consensus on biodiversity protection, push forward the global process of biodiversity protection, promote green development through biodiversity protection, and uphold a fair and equitable global order on biodiversity protection.

Xi’s remarks injected important impetus into the consultations on the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, which have entered a critical stage.

Biodiversity makes Earth full of vigor and vitality, and lays the foundation for human survival and development. Today, mankind is standing at a crossroads of protecting biodiversity and achieving sustainable development.

The latest research has found that more than one million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction, and the monitored animal populations had fallen 69 percent since 1970.

According to the fifth edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook released by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), none of the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets, the world’s first biodiversity conservation targets spanning 10 years from 2011 to 2020, was fully met by 2020.

The international community expected the second part of the COP15 to conclude the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework and identify targets and pathways for global biodiversity protection.

As the presidency of the COP15, China has fully performed its duties and promoted communication and coordination among various parties in a multi-facet, multi-dimensional, and multi-level manner, actively advancing the process of consultations and negotiations on the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.

In October 2021, Xi delivered a keynote speech via video link at the leaders’ summit of the COP15 held in Kunming City, capital of southwest China’s Yunnan province.

In the speech, Xi put forward important proposals including taking the development of ecological civilization as humanity’s guide to coordinate the relationship between man and Nature, letting green transition drive the efforts of countries to facilitate global sustainable development, concentrating on bettering people’s well-being to promote social equity and justice, and taking international law as the basis to uphold a fair and equitable international governance system.

At the summit, Xi announced China’s initiative to establish a Kunming Biodiversity Fund and take the lead by investing 1.5 billion yuan (about $214.81 million) to support biodiversity protection in developing countries. By doing so, China has contributed its wisdom, solution, and strength to promoting global biodiversity protection.

During the second part of the COP15, China has continued to guide substantive and political affairs of the conference, and actively facilitated the formulation of a Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework with ambitious, balanced and pragmatic global biodiversity conservation targets.

As one of the most biodiverse countries in the world and also one of the first countries to sign and ratify the CBD, China has made active efforts to promote ecological civilization construction and biodiversity protection.

China has continuously strengthened biodiversity mainstreaming, applied a system of ecological conservation red lines, established a protected areas system with national parks as the mainstay, carried out major biodiversity protection projects, and conducted the most stringent supervision and management of law enforcement in the environmental protection sector.

As a result, a large number of rare and endangered species in China have been placed under effective protection, the diversity, stability and sustainability of ecosystems in the country have kept improving, and the country found a path of biodiversity protection with Chinese characteristics, effectively boosting global confidence in biodiversity protection.

While making great achievements in biodiversity conservation and ecological civilization construction, China has scored huge achievements in economic development, providing useful experience for all the other developing countries, said Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, executive secretary of the Secretariat of the CBD.

Since 2019, China has been the largest contributor to the core budget of the CBD and its Protocols, strongly supported its operation and implementation of the CBD.

Going forward, China will continue to advance ecological progress, plan its development in the context of promoting harmonious co-existence between man and Nature, respond to the Action Plan for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, launch a large number of key projects on biodiversity protection and restoration, deepen international exchanges and cooperation, and support international forums on biodiversity, Xi said in his speech at the opening ceremony of the high-level segment of the second part of the COP15.

China’s leadership is crucial to the conclusion of an ambitious and implementable Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, said Marco Lambertini, director-general of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) International.

Earth is the only and shared home for human beings, and promoting harmony between humanity and Nature is the shared vision of the international community.

In order to promote global biodiversity protection, the international community urgently needs to safeguard and practice true multilateralism, and join hands to translate ambition into action.

China will continue to work together with the rest of the international community to jointly advance the formulation of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, promote the harmonious co-existence between man and Nature, build a community of all life on the Earth, and create a clean and beautiful world for all

By Liu Fawei, People’s Daily

On the vast land of China, the beauty of biodiversity can be found everywhere. The northward migration of wild Asian elephants in southwest China’s Yunnan province, the frequent appearances of the Yangtze finless porpoises, the presence of marbled cats (Pardofelis Marmorata) in the Gaoligong Mountain National Nature Reserve in Yunnan, and the spectacular view of thousands of Tibetan antelopes galloping on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, etc, show that China’s remarkable progress in biodiversity conservation.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on Biological Diversity. As one of the earliest parties to sign and ratify the Convention, China has always been taking various measures to protect biodiversity.

China attaches great importance to biodiversity protection. It has elevated biodiversity conservation to a national strategy, taken a series of measures to protect biodiversity, and constantly improved the systems, mechanisms, and policies concerning biodiversity protection.

In 2011, the China National Committee for Biodiversity Conservation (CNCBC) was unveiled to coordinate biodiversity protection efforts nationwide and provided guidance for China’s Action on United Nations Decade on Biodiversity. China also released and implemented a national action plan as well as 22 protection strategies and action plans at the local level.

Over the past nearly 10 years, China has promulgated and revised more than 20 laws and regulations related to biodiversity conservation, including the Forestry Law and the Grassland Law. In 2021, China released the Opinions on Further Strengthening Biodiversity Conservation and made it a programmatic plan in the country’s biodiversity conservation work.

A document released by the Supreme People’s Court, China’s top court, showed that since 2013, courts at various levels across the country have handled 182,000 biodiversity cases involving rare and endangered animals and plants, including Chinese sturgeon, Tibetan antelopes, Taxus chinensis, and other representative and endemic species in China, as well as pangolins, great white sharks, coral, and other globally rare and endangered species, offering a law-based biodiversity conservation approach with Chinese characteristics.

China has introduced ecological red lines, which have demarcated over 30 percent of its land area as protected, covering all ecological areas, areas which are ecologically vulnerable, and key biodiversity distribution areas. A total of 90 percent of the country’s terrestrial ecosystem types and 74 percent of key state-protected wild flora and fauna species have been placed under effective protection measures. The country has established 749 observation plots and completed an assessment of higher plants, vertebrates, and macrofungi species.

In October 2021, the first part of the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) was held in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province.

“Over the past year, China has made new headway in mainstreaming biodiversity conservation. The country launched the first batch of national parks, which cover nearly 30 percent of the key terrestrial wildlife species found in China. The country also inaugurated and opened the China National Botanical Garden in Beijing and the South China National Botanical Garden in Guangzhou, kicking off the construction of the national botanical garden system,” said Cui Shuhong, director-general of the Department of Nature and Ecology Conservation at the Ministry of Ecology and Environment.

In recent years, China has carried out cooperation on biodiversity conservation with many countries, and the cooperation has yielded fruitful results. The China-Laos transboundary biodiversity reserve, with an area of 200,000 hectares, effectively protects rare and endangered species such as Asian elephants and their habitats. The Sino-Africa Joint Research Center under the Chinese Academy of Sciences has cultivated more than 200 postgraduate students from Africa on biodiversity conservation and utilization, building a talent pool for African countries.

In terms of foreign investment and cooperation, the Chinese government has always adhered to a green development philosophy. Relevant departments have jointly issued and implemented policy documents, including the Opinions on the Joint Implementation of Green Development in the Belt and Road Initiative, which set clear-cut requirements for environmental protection in the implementation of relevant projects.

In building the Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) in Kenya, Chinese builders set up passages, bridges, and culverts for large wild animals to freely and safely pass under the railway. During the construction of Ghana’s new container terminal, Chinese builders established a sea turtle hatchery and released baby turtles into the ocean. These projects have not only promoted local economic development but also protected biodiversity.

The second part of the COP15 is being held from December 7 to 19 in Montreal, Canada. As the presidency of the COP15, China has fully performed its duties and promoted communication and coordination among various parties in a multi-facet, multi-dimensional, and multi-level manner, actively advancing the process of consultations and negotiations on the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.

Biodiversity is the basis for human survival and development and has a direct bearing on our wellbeing. Going forward, China will continue to advance ecological progress, and plan its development in the context of promoting harmonious co-existence between man and Nature.