Rivers State Govt. Receives 74 Thunga Report From Stevenson Holistic Care Foundation (UN ECOSOC NGO) And COP 26 GLASGOW Climate Action Summit 2021.

Rivers State Government today received 74Thunga report From Stevenson Holistic Care Foundation (UN ECOSOC NGO) and COP 26 GLASGOW climate action summit 2021. Proposition from African Trade Center In collaboration with UNFCCC accredited NGO -center for human rights and climate change research (CHR/CLR) led by Dr. Hephzibah Suobo and delegation from Niger Delta

The Ag. Commissioner / Permanent Secretary Rivers State Ministry of Environment Dr. Nduye Christie Tobin Briggs and all the Directors of the Ministry and the Climate Desk OfficerQ received Dr. Hephzibah Suobo and delegation from African Trade Center at the Podium Block section of the Rivers State Secretariat Complex in Port Harcourt, the state capital known has garden city of Nigeria.

The mission of the Delegation was made known during an interactive session at the conference hall where Dr. Suobo announced to the ministry the objectives of the Paris agreement and the need for state parities and sub national entities to establish legal partway to decarbonization and meet up with the 2030 deadline. He said Rivers state is already experiencing black soot from fossil fuel emissions mostly resulting from oil and gas and petrochemical industries. He said the Rivers state government should take action on climate change by embracing the agreed conclusions of the 74th UNGA Climate Action Summit 2019 and COP 25, Paris Agreement and the Kyoto Protocol, 1994/98. He said these reports will help the government to embrace nature based solutions to fight nature based violence in the Niger Delta especially perennially flooding and rise in sea levels as experienced in recent years. He said the entire Niger Delta region is now vulnerable to climate change impacts if nothing is done to reduce the carbon footprint in the atmosphere generated by the fossil fuel emissions.

He said Rivers State is the home of mangrove trees, and more tree planting culture in the state will serve as carbon sinks and natural wind breakers to violent storm. He said the wetlands constitute an important economic asset in terms absorbing CO2 and the state is at risk of existential threat of nature based violence because of over 60 years of gaseous emissions from over 150 flaring site without adhering to mitigation plan and adaptation plan.

Dr. Hephzibah Suobo also used the medium to do a formal presentation of the 74TH UNGA Report 2019 to Rivers State Government received by the state ministry of environment. And equally invited the state ministry of environment for Pre COP 26 Consultative Summit to prepare a state delegation for COP 26 Side event in Glasgow, Scotland United Kingdom by November 2021.

While handing the COP 26 Proposals Ag. Commissioner and the Directors welcomed the ideas and pledged to work with the UN ECOSOC NGOs to achieve all the objectives and ideas raised in the discussion. Dr. Hephzibah Suobo said his passion for climate action started when he was invited for a town hall meeting at Ogbia town of Oloibiri Bayelsa State by Friends of the Earth International and Environmental Rights Action (ERA) In 2006, and later participated in the Central African Sub-Regional Consultative Forum in Yaoundé, Cameroon in view of EU-AU Head of Government Summit Lisbon Portugal 2007 and stepped down the output strategies at Youth And Climate Change discourse event organized to sensitize the 500 Youths from Voluntary Youth Organizations (VYOs). He later registered as member of YALI NETWORK (Bureau for International Development, US State Department in 2016 and got certificate On Understanding Climate Change.

By 2018, He participated and contributed to the thematic direction on World Wetland Day Lecture organized by the Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF) in Abuja. BY 2019, He was a delegate representing Nigeria at the 74th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Summit in New York, UN PLAZA with focus on High-Level Meeting on Climate Action/Universal Health Coverage with UNSG and UNDSG. After the meeting he gathered the African Delegates to kick start the African Climate Reality Initiative (AFRICARE) and earned the membership of US based Climate Campaigner- Team 54 International. He was invited by the UN for Conference of the Parties (COP 25 Chile/ Madrid Spain in late 2019 and the UN African Climate Week in Kampala, Uganda 2020. He signed up the UN Women Generation Equality Action Coalition with focus to encourage Feminist Movement for Climate Action in Mexico 2021. And earned the invitation to participated the UNDP NDC Women Achievement Webinar, 2021. He was Nominated for Environment Person of the year 2020 by Bayelsa Merit Award .He was appointed as consultant on Climate Action by the Ministry of Environment, Bayelsa State 2021 and same year he was conferred full membership of the Nigerian Institute for International Affairs( NIIA)