Nigeria wants to host the COP32 United Nations climate summit in Lagos in 2027, its government announced today as the chief of the UN’s climate arm, Simon Stiell, visited the West African mega-city.
At a symposium with Stiell in attendance, Nkiruka Maduekwe, the head of the country’s climate change council, said on Thursday that Africa’s most populated city “has what it takes to host COP32”.
She then told a press briefing that Nigeria has shown leadership as a “champion” of climate action and so it is time for the country to host a COP summit.
Lagos state commissioner for environment Tokunbo Wahab added that Lagos is ready to do whatever is needed to host COP32. “If Azerbaijan can host COP in Baku, why can’t Nigeria do it in Lagos?” he asked.
The environment ministry said in a post on social media platform X that Nigeria wanted to put on the annual UN summit because it would boost the country’s “climate leadership, global visibility and economic opportunities”.
African nations will jointly decide which country to put forward to host COP32 and are likely to make this decision at COP30 in Brazil this November, after which it would then have to be approved by all countries by consensus at the conference.
Nigeria is the first to officially declare its interest, which Stiell said that he “welcomed” at the media briefing in Lagos. While noting that “there is a process” and there will be other bidders, he said he will “encourage Nigeria within its constituency group [the African group]”.
Africa’s turn
COP summits are where all 198 governments which have ratified the UN’s climate change convention (UNFCCC) gather to negotiate joint statements and agreements on climate change.
The right to host a COP rotates between the UN’s five geographic blocks and COP32 in 2027 will be Africa’s turn, five years on from Egypt’s hosting of COP27 in 2022.
According to Net Zero Tracker, which analyses country’s climate plans, Nigeria is the only African country to have enshrined a target to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions in law. It aims to reach net zero by 2060, a target it set in 2021.
It is also the continent’s biggest oil producer, with extensive oil drilling in its southern Delta region and offshore. It relies on oil and gas revenue for nearly half of its government budget. At COP28 in 2023, all governments agreed to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems – though they did not say how or by when.
Internationally, like the African Group as a whole, Nigeria’s government has pushed for wealthy nations to pay more to help developing countries tackle climate change.
On the campaign trail in 2022, current President Bola Tinubu said that unless developed countries deliver climate finance “we are not going to comply with your climate change”.
At the closing meeting of last year’s COP29 summit, Maduekwe of Nigeria’s National Council on Climate Change attracted global media attention as she criticised the agreement that rich nations would aim to provide $300 billion of climate finance a year by 2035 as insufficient.
“It is 3am and we are going to clap our hands and say this is what we are going to do – I don’t think so,” she said. “We do not accept this.”
