By Louis Achi With Agency Reports
With the COP28, UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai, UAE, recording 97,000 participants, a UN official has stated the bloated delegate figures should not become a model for attendance in the future.
This position was expressed by the head of the UN Development Programme, Achim Steiner.
The UN official says that the conference could become more difficult to find host countries to accommodate around 100,000 people and provide a conference site for them.
“I personally believe that these conferences have become too big,’’ he said in an interview with dpa in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, on Monday.
But Steiner said he did not want to tell anyone not to take part.
His words: “And if a country like the United Arab Emirates has the opportunity to organise such a large conference, then I don’t think that’s our biggest problem.”
However, it should be borne in mind that the growth of conferences means a lot of effort, time and costs.
It could become more difficult to find host countries to accommodate around 100,000 people and provide a conference site for them, Mr Steiner said.
Steiner’s remark came amid raging displeasure many Nigerians have expressed about the bloated Nigerian delegation at the conference.
According to the published list, Nigeria and China have 1,411 delegates each with badges accredited to attend this year‘s summit in Dubai.
A review of the published list ranked Nigeria joint third behind the UAE and Brazil among all the countries present at COP28.
Out of the total 1,411 Nigerian delegates, 821 have the “Overflow” badges, while 590 were approved to carry the “Party” badge.
TheNewDiplomat had reported a backlash by angry Nigerians about the wasteful spending of scarce public funds on many of the Nigerian delegates who did not have to be at the conference.
This year’s UN Climate Change Conference, hosted by the UAE has been the largest ever staged.
According to the UN Climate Change Secretariat, 97,372 people were registered on site, including around 52,000 state delegates as well as observers and almost 4,000 journalists.
This makes the conference almost twice as large as its predecessor in Egypt, which hosted the largest climate conference to date with around 50,000 participants.
(dpa/NAN)
