ENVIRONMENT The clamour for policy actions to tackle climate change
Lack of refuse disposal vans, security mar sanitation in Kwara
The extreme weather variations, rising sea levels, encroaching desertification, excessive rainfall, land degradation among other phenomena threatening the ecosystem have been attributed to the negative effects of climate change.
With the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the Agenda 2030, which provided the global framework for action, nations are expected to domesticate the actions.
Speaking at the 2017 United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Nigeria’s Minister of State for Environment, Ibrahim Usman Jibril, said addressing climate change within the overall development challenges of a developing nation like Nigeria is no simple task, noting however that the main challenge is translating commitment to pragmatic actions and generating the required financing.
The minister, however, stressed that financing climate action by developing countries would require support from developed countries which is hinged on the “$100 billion by 2020” committed at COP21.
He explained that it is estimated that Nigeria will require around $142 billion, translating to about $10 billion per annum to meet her NDC target by 2030, saying, “It therefore becomes imperative that capital will need to flow toward lowcarbon, climate resilient opportunities and away from carbon intensive, polluting activities or those that exacerbate climate vulnerability.”
While buttressing the provision of SDGs 13 on the need to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts, he said Nigeria has recognised that climate change presents one of the greatest challenges of the world today.
However, stakeholders in the environment sector have said there is need to turn advocacy to actions in order to fight the issue of climate change.
They said it is important to mobilise the private sector to explore the investment opportunities in climate change.
Speaking recently in Abuja, an American environmentalist and renewable energy developer, Jerome Ringo, said there is need to educate the people and create call for action.
While calling for policies to reduce impact of climate change, Ringo said Nigeria and other African countries can no longer wait on the industrialized world to fix the climate change issue in their countries, rather it is time for them to turn their complaints into action.
“The real success story will occur here. Africa must reduce dependence on the West and strengthen itself. It is time for bills to ensure there are green jobs. Opportunities are around green jobs that stimulate employments,” he said.
The Director, Climate Change Department at the Federal Ministry of Environment, Dr Peter Yerima Tarfa, at the Nigeria Climate Change Investment Forum, tagged, ‘Accessing Funding and Foreign Direct Investment in Green Economy: Processes, Partnership and Projects’ in Abuja, said, “We must move beyond thinking about climate change and global warming to take action as a nation.”
Dr Tarfa said issues of climate change are looked upon as a doom but that gradually that has been dropped as they can be looked at as investment opportunities in different sectors of oil and gas, agriculture and transportation among others.
He said there are means of turning opportunities from carbon release sources to efficient renewable energy.
Another climate specialist, Mr. Peter Rowan, said green economy is the way forward to address the climate issues.
Rowan said the most important thing is having an action plan and implementing it as well as having responsible and accountable actors and meeting timelines and goals.
He, however, said addressing climate change offers opportunities but that Nigeria should keep it simple on any project, building good sustainable capacity.
The Curator of Nigeria Climate Change Investment Initiative (NCCII), Dr Paul Abolo, had while speaking at a forum, stressed the need for easy access to funds to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change.
He said Nigeria only accessed three percent of the total fund available for the country on climate change.
To address the issue, he said the NCCII will facilitate actions leading to innovative approaches to sustainable development through environmental and economic strategy integration.
While noting the need for Nigeria to take leadership of green economy in the continent, Dr Abolo maintained that tackling the effects of climate change needs concerted efforts by all to reduce the depletion of the environment.
The President of ECOLIFE, a conservation initiative, Mr Henry Akwitti, said that the burden of climate change mitigation and adaptation should not be left to government alone but also have private sector participation.
Speaking in Abuja during a street awareness tagged ‘Climate Change Walk to Take Action Campaign’, Akwitti said if the private sector included climate change mitigation in its policies, more would be achieved in curbing the threat.
He said though Nigeria has made progress towards passing the national climate change bill, it has not yet put concrete technological frame work and operational plan in place to achieve the 2030 targets.
“In many decades past, Nigeria had a peaceful and serene environment. Today, our activities have distorted this natural balance causing very dangerous effects to our environment,” he said.
According to him, the desert is encroaching southwards with a significant margin; the Lake Chad has shrunk to 10 percent; the tropical rainforest of the southwest has been destroyed; and there has been more gas flaring than before.