The impacts posed by climate change is being felt in virtually all countries and continents of the World from Africa, Europe, Asia, North and South America, Australia, and Antarctica. It has been considered as a fight-back from nature, the harm and evils of human activities and damages done to mother earth.
The effects range from wildfire, volcano eruptions, landslides, earthquakes, flooding, erosion, excessive heat from ozone layer depletion amongst others. There was an urgent need for world leaders to converge in Glasgow, Scotland UK, to discuss and chart sustainable and innovative solutions to issues on climate change.
The acronym COP26 (26th session of Conference of the Parties), which was originally scheduled to hold on the 9-19 November, 2020 but was postponed because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
It was held on the 31st October – 12 November, 2021 with an ambitious climate change commitment from World leaders in different works of life to attain net zero economy, 6 years after the historic Paris Agreement. Ambitions are meant to be plans and promises turned into workable actions.
One of the World leaders who was in attendance was President Muhammadu Buhari, to inform the other global leaders in different spheres of life, Nigeria’s strategic plans to tackle climate change challenges and achieve net zero economy.
A clear lesson to be learnt from Buhari’s address is simple; finance is a necessary condition to tackle climate change challenges in Nigeria
Extracts from President Muhammadu Buhari’s speech at COP26 clearly highlights some of the challenges of climate change currently faced in Nigeria. Climate change has affected economic growth, particularly for sectors of the economy that are dependent on climatic conditions like agriculture, hydro power energy and public health.
Excessive rain and drought as a result of climate change have caused food shortage, low crop yield, reduction in life stock and heavy loss of income for farmers in an economy that has a high composition of its population as farmers. This, according to some scholars, will lead to food crisis, hunger, starvation and full blown shortage of local grown food supply.
There are also challenges of climate change effect on hydroelectric dams, most notably, the Kainji dam and other smaller dams, which is a major and vital source of electric energy in Nigeria. The irregular and unpredictable rainfall needed to run these sources of power supply are inconsistent and inadequate as a result of climate change.
Again, climate change has shown to impact negatively on public health illnesses like malaria, respiratory illness caused by soot as a result of deforestation, excessive burning and petroleum exploration in the Niger delta.
Desertification in the north, flooding, erosion and pollution are a great concern to environmental and health experts. Nigeria is not interested in the uncertainties of the future but the climate change impact of today and now.
Read also: After #COP26 Glasgow, what next?
President Buhari explained from his speech that Nigeria was making genuine efforts in addressing the challenges of climate change. He requested for financial support and investment in energy transition from fossil fuel to gas, solar and wind sources of energy to reduce the emission of carbon monoxide responsible for ozone layer depletion.
There is also a need for investment in renewable energy infrastructure and his administration’s planned project of electrifying 5 million households and 25 million people through a decentralized solar energy provider. He described the project as a novel strategy to close the energy deficit in Nigeria by 2030.
Buhari said that Nigeria was committed to achieving net zero by 2060 for economic transformation, but will require funding and financial assistance from more developed economies to developing economies to invest in critical infrastructure and meet their National Determined Contributions (NDCs) of their respective countries.
There are plans according to Mr. President for an energy transition to gas and other “earth friendly” alternative sources of energy even as the 2022 proposed budget is believed to be a climate responsive budget, the first in the country’s history.
The Climate Change Bill has been passed by the national assembly to encourage green growth, low emission and sustainable development.
A clear lesson to be learnt from Buhari’s address is simple; finance is a necessary condition to tackle climate change challenges in Nigeria. While some might disagree or criticize the president’s speech, for more words and less action in practical realities, it is yet to be seen if Nigeria can generate funds, attract investment and financial support in addressing the challenges of climate change.
The economic impact of covid-19 on global economies remains a threat to raising enough global funds to address the common enemy that must be confronted. While we hope successive governments beyond 2023 will translate this global commitment on climate change to reality, they remain a source of concern and worry to experts, Nigerians and the international community, as time is running out in saving mother earth from self-inflicted man-made destruction.
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