The Senator representing Ondo South Senatorial District, Dr. Jimoh Ibrahim, has called for the swapping of Africa’s debts with the disasters and other pains the continent has been undergoing due to climate change.
Speaking with journalists at the end of a session at the ongoing World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings in Marrakech, Morocco, Ibrahim, recommended that Africa’s debts, particularly that of Nigeria, be swapped for the pains of climate change coming from the United States of America, China, Russia, Germany and other developed economies.
The Nigerian lawyer and businessman explained: “Africa is hugely in debt, using $50 billion every year to service debts without paying the debtor,” which to him was worrisome to the entire world.
“What I told the IMF and World Bank is that there is a climate change issue impacting the continent.
“Carbon dioxide is polluted by the plethora of cars in America and burning of fossils. This is really affecting Africans and their health. The consequences should be paid by the pollutant and they should pay for the damages that erupts in the African continent, because disaster does not require a visa to travel. “Who is going to pay for the burning of fossils and pollution of carbon dioxide in Africa,” he added.
He pointed out that if one quantifies the amount of damage done to Africa, “you can exchange it for Africa’s debts.”
According to Ibrahim, “the IMF is looking at this seriously and they asked me a question: How do we quantify the damages? But I told them, we have data. “We don’t produce cars in Africa, but the whole world uses cars. These cars are produced in either Germany, America, Russia, China and India.
“Imagine the number of cars in the world and burning fossil oil is consequences of all the disasters we see which leads to manipulation of carbon dioxide which is what we breathe in as oxygen.
“If you look at it, Africans that stay abroad, they reason better and look better than those of us that stay in Nigeria. It means that the whole carbon dioxide pollution is coming to Africa and for every conference you have on climate change, America finds it difficult to sign the agreement of liability and we are saying we must get people to sign to the liability because he who pollutes must pay,” the lawmaker added.