By Nathan N. Mulbah
The 2025 Conference of the Parties (COP 30) got underway early this month in the Brazilian state of Belém with representatives from various countries around the world represented and keen in the fight against climate change in attendance.
The COP is a conference put in vogue by the United Nations Climate Change Conference. The COP 30 commenced on the 10th 0f November and ended on the 21 of November in Belem, Brazil.
Generally, the theme of the COP30 essentially focused on adaptation, which is aimed at making communities, nature and economies resilient to climate change. Other themes discussed during the conference and on the sideline included climate finance, nature-based solutions, indigenous leadership and concrete action on loss and damage.
The Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Dr. Emmanuel Urey Yarkpawolo at the head of a high-power Liberian delegation represented Liberia at that conference. The Liberian delegation comprised folks from Civil Society Organizations, local community leadership, government officials, University lecturers and dons, as well as climate change activists.
Notably, Liberia Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) mainly emphasized our maintenance of the reminder of the forest in the Gulf Guinea.
Statistically, Liberia holds about 40 percent of West Africa’s Upper Guinean rainforest. As a result of this development, international and national organizations have worked with communities and the country’s leadership to clean up the corruption that many say has pervaded outside investments in timber and commercial agriculture.
Lately, there have been frantic efforts for the creation of a carbon market in Liberia ostensibly because Liberia dense forests cover nearly 70% of the country as a lifeline for most rural Liberians.
Approximately, half of our population lives in within 2.5 kilometers of a forest and earns on average, 35 percent of their income from trading forest products.
To dissuade the local populace from relying on forest products as their source of livelihood, the adaptation program should by now be up and running with the necessary impact being felt across the country.
Already, rich countries attending the Brazil conference have not given the green light that they will bankrolled cash to poor country to help them in the fight against climate change.
In fact, all we see in Liberia is the organization of workshop for people living in the catchment areas of reserved forest areas and those living along the coastal line of the country.
Henceforth, going forward, we will appreciate were there to be programs put in vogue to ensure that alternative livelihood programs be put in place so as to have the local population stop harvesting products from the forests or river bodies.
Commercial activities in Liberia’s forests play a vital role in the economy. Women, in particular, depend on forests for subsistence survival by collecting fuelwood and medicinal plants, while men more often engage in timber extraction. The forest sector employs tens of thousands of people, both formally and informally.
In Liberia, the NDC is a bold and inclusive climate action roadmap that aligns national development priorities with global climate goals under the Paris Agreement.
In spite of the Paris Agreement ambitious goals, it faces significant challenges in meeting global climate target, ranging from inadequate national commitments to enforcement issues, economic disparities, and legal complexities surrounding treaty implementation.
Given the slow manner in which we are proceeding in creating the platform for adaptation in Liberia, ‘Yours Truly’ recommends that the EPA and other relevant agencies involved in the climate change fight do all within their reach to settle this issue of adaptation head on.
We appreciate that the EPA is developing a plan policy for the marketing of carbon in Liberia. We would also like to use this medium to have that agency informed that adaptation of local people living in the catchment areas of forests and other climate change affected environment is sine-qua-non to the fight against climate change.
