President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, pledged Nigeria’s readiness to host the secretariat of the Sahel Climate Fund, including equipping and providing accommodation to the top management staff of the fund.
The “Sahel Climate Fund” is the financial body of the Sahel Region Climate Commission (SRCC), according to a statement by Garba Shehu, the senior special assistant to the president on media and publicity.
The body is one of the three climate commissions for Africa created in Marrakech, Morocco in 2016 at the Summit of African Heads of State and Government, organised at the initiative of King of Morocco, on the sidelines of the 22nd Conference of the Parties (COP22) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Speaking at the 2nd Heads of State and Government of SRCC during the 36th AU summit, the president said as an active member of the commission, Nigeria will support the operationalisation of the secretariat for an effective implementation of the climate change activities in the region.
Buhari expressed concern that the availability and access to funds for implementation of the climate change activities, especially adaptation, remain major problems for the African region.
He, therefore, described the Sahel Climate Fund as an additional financial resource which is adequate and predictable for implementation of the requirements of the climate change convention and the Paris agreement.
According to the Nigerian leader, the fund will, among others, serve as a gateway to climate finance and investment strategy, finance the implementation of National Determined Contributions (NDCs) of member states and ensure effective participation of the Sahel Region in the global effort to curb greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
The fund is also expected to mobilise required resources from member states, bilateral and multilateral partners, and private financial institutions.
‘‘Understanding the barriers to accelerated climate finance inflows and our climate related sectors, are perceived to be high risk investment destinations due to multi-layered operational risks, the Sahel Climate Fund will serve as a gateway to climate finance and investment strategy that considers innovative and practical ways to overcome multiple risk impediments and sustainable financial support to Sahelian countries.
‘‘In addition, the Sahel Climate Fund will be the necessary climate finance mechanism that will be instrumental in financing the implementation of the NDCs of member states, contribute to strengthening the adaptation and resilience capacities of local communities along with their livelihoods,and ensure effective participation of the Sahel region in the global effort to curb GHG emissions.
‘‘The Sahel Climate Fund will mobilise the necessary resources from member states, bilateral and multilateral partners, and private financial institutions to foster cooperation and coordinated actions among Sahel Region Climate Commission member countries to address climate change,’’ he said.
He underscored the need for urgent and extensive action as well as broad international participation required to tackle climate change in Africa.
‘‘We are looking forward to a positive and sustainable view concerning provision of adequate and predictable finance, adaptation, loss and damage, capacity building, development and deployment of necessary support to the Sahel Region Climate Commission so as to ensure comprehensive activities towards mitigating and adapting to climate change and sustainable development in the region,’’ the president added.
Warning that climate change was an increasing threat to Africa, with Nigeria no least affected, Buhari said its adverse impact was the underlying cause of many human population stressors and conflicts with the potential of causing regional instability.
‘‘It has now been recognised as a threat to human survival with different degrees of challenges based on the regions,’’ he said.
He added that the Sahel region, like several other regions of the world, was subject to high climatic variability characterised, among other things, by changes in rainfall patterns, desertification, extreme temperatures, recurrent droughts with perceptible effects on agricultural land, pastures, water resources, food security and the economy in general.
According to him, this situation weakens both the living conditions of the populations and the ecosystems and contributes to growing insecurity in the area.
‘‘Nigeria is grappling with a wide-range of adverse impacts of climate change.
‘‘Like other countries in Africa within the Sahel region, the country has over the past few decades been plagued by a lot of climatic irregularities with serious concerns on the society, due to its spontaneous nature and likely overwhelming effects on national development with implications for food security due to changes in rainfall pattern, desertification and obstruction to the natural ecosystems,’’ he said.
In his text circulated at the summit, King Mohammed VI of Morocco warned that by 2030 no fewer than 118 million people in Africa would be directly threatened by extreme weather events.
In the G5 Sahel-sub-region, he said, it was estimated that poverty could affect an additional 13.5 million people by 2050.
‘‘Despite this alarming situation, up to 2020 our continent has received only 12 percent of global climate financing,’’ he said.
