Climate change and clean energy transition in Nigeria ( 2)
THE 2015 Paris Agreement ( COP21) goal is to hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 Celsius above pre- industrial level and pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 Celsius above pre- industrial levels.
It does not appear that humanity is on track to meet this goal ( 7). If global CO2 emissions continue on current trend ( 36.8 Gigatons/ year ( 8)), we are likely to reach 2 to 4 Celsius above pre- industrial levels by the end of this century ( 9). This will have catastrophic effects for the world and especially for Nigerians.
Under the current trend, the earth will be 1 to 3 degrees warmer than it is now and the average annual daily temperature in Nigeria may be up to 30 Celsius by then. Although this may not look like a lot of change and there may be regional variations with some places even warmer or cooler, given the high humidity in many parts of the country, life may end up becoming very difficult for most people.
More people will need to rely on air- conditioning to live through normal days, less people will remain outdoors for any extended period of time and the risks of heat stroke and other types of heat stresses will increase the care burden on our already overstretched healthcare system.
Some professionals such as in construction may be unable to work given the heat leading to extensive job losses.
Higher temperatures will also lead to drying out of the agricultural lands causing crop failures and evaporative losses of water bodies. Combined with the expected increase in erratic rainfall with some regions seeing lower than expected rain there may be droughts for extended periods that decimate the agricultural industry putting at risk the ability of our farmers to feed their families and the rest of the nation.
Heavy rainfall in some areas will lead to extensive flooding destroying farmlands, homes, property and potentially killing many people.
In the long term over the next hundred years, several coastal cities such as Lagos, Port Harcourt, Bonny Island may have large swathes inundated by rising sea levels which are projected to rise by up to seven feet globally if the world continues to emit CO2 as per current trends ( 10). Flooding may contaminate underground water tables and lead to the spread of vector borne diseases. The combination of these adverse climate related events will lead to mass displacement, higher unemployment levels and potentially worsen insecurity and conflict in the country.
Recommended Climate Adaptation Strategies:
In order to prevent these identified challenges and so as not to be caught unawares, it is important to develop a comprehensive climate risk assessment report that identifies all potential climate risks across all local government areas in the country. Every local government area will experience climate change impact differently. It is therefore important to know what these risks are so as to develop a national preparedness strategy and to prepare the people ahead of time so that they can know what to expect and also so that they can be prepared to adapt to the problems as they arise.
There are five adaptation strategies I would like to propose - community engagement and education, building resilient infrastructure, agricultural adaptation, water resource management, public health resilience and clean energy transition.
First, every local community needs to be educated about climate change and everyone needs to be engaged in generating the solutions. Climate change is a collective action problem and we need to mobilise our people to help solve it. The people are an important resource to co- generate solutions to this issue as they are the ones experiencing the problem first hand. Local government town halls should be organised to sensitise the population.
Climate knowledge extension officers should be hired to go door to door to educate people. National media campaigns on television, radio, billboards and digital media should be conducted to educate the people about what climate change is, the risks posed and the opportunities available. Ideas should be solicited for local solutions to address climate change.
Hackathons can be held at universities and polytechnics with funding made available by local banks and guaranteed by the government. This will help to finance local innovations into potential businesses that can then develop products and services that solve local climate change related problems while generating employment and potentially export dollars.
The national preparedness and response strategy that is developed as part of the risk assessment and ideas solicitation should be disseminated to every household so that people know how to identify climate related extreme weather events, what to do, where to go and whom to call when these events occur in their communities.
The National emergency management agency should also have budgetary reserves mandated by law passed by the federal legislature so that they have enough funding to address all climate emergencies as they occur. This reserve fund should be financed directly from a share of government royalties earned from export of crude oil, natural gas and through direct grants from developed countries and multilateral institutions. Second, infrastructure must be built to be resilient and enforced through building codes passed by state legislatures. In flood prone areas, utility grid transformers and building electric switch boxes must be mandated to be hoisted several meters above ground.
This will ensure that in the event of flooding that there are no widespread power outages and will also reduce negative health risks of electrocutions. Sewers should be enforced to be built as fully closed off so that sewage does not leak into ground water during floods. In the Sahelian north, a tree fence should be planted to keep the soil in place and reverse the encroaching desert. This tree presence will provide cover reducing the evaporation of surface and underground water reserves. An ambitious plan can be put in place to pipe in ocean water from the Atlantic to the Lake Chad region and have it desalinated. The desalinated water can then be used to refill Lake Chad and reverse the 90 per cent loss of water that the lake has faced over the last 30 years. This will help preserve the livelihoods of the communities who rely on the lake for food, transportation and commerce. In coastal cities, slums on the sea should begin to be moved to higher ground with sufficient awareness and alternatives provided to their inhabitants and a clearly defined timeline to complete the migration.
Coastal seawalls similar to the Eko Atlantic great wall should be constructed across the entire length of the southern coast of the country. Financing can be raised through public- private partnerships or by tapping the climate adaptation funds being put together by developed countries.
Third, subsistence and commercial agriculture should be adapted for resilience. Farmlands can be mandated to have rain- water collection towers that run off rainwater into underground and above- ground storage tanks.
This will ensure that there is water supply in the event of droughts. Research labs such as the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture ( IITA) should be mandated to develop new crop varieties that are purpose bred to be resilient in drought and flood conditions. New techniques for farming that preserve biodiversity, soil fertility and climate resilience should be developed and disseminated by agriculture extension workers to all farmers.
Encourage the implementation of AI tools working with satellites and drones to automate the checking of the health of crops and farmlands at scale with recommendations of solutions to apply such as irrigation, fertilizer, organic pesticides etc. This way technology can scale up farming, increasing the responsiveness of farmers to climate change effects and reducing losses.