As we prepare for Durban climate talks…
By Ewah Otu Eleri
Estimates of the financial cost of this year’s floods in Lagos vary. According to newspaper reports, perhaps a hundred billion Naira may have been lost. Nationwide, this year’s floods may have cost Nigeria an equivalent of about two billion US Dollars or nearly two percent of GDP. This does not include the loss of life, or the daily stories of human suffering. But our government doesn’t stop to count the cost – the cost of its inaction.
Actions required to tackle climate change are often in our national economic interest. Take for one, the issue of gas flaring. This is Africa’s most important single source of harmful greenhouse gases that cause global warming. If we had the courage to switch off this evil fire, there will be enough gas for our power plants, and we can expand our economy and create jobs. And we may also have spared the pain we cause the people and environment of the Niger Delta. The benefits of reducing the emission of these harmful gases would only have been a bonus to the fight against global warming.
In addition to ending gas flaring, expanding transportation infrastructure such as the Bus Rapid Transit in Lagos, scaling up renewable energy supply and encouraging energy efficiency - actions needed to grow our economy - are critical for addressing global warming. Since the impacts of climate change are already here, we can also build more climate resilient infrastructure, better roads, bridges, drainage systems, dams, and create insurance schemes for our farmers. But this is not happening.
Making progress against climate change in Nigeria will require a stronger policy and institutional framework. Today, there is no clear political ownership of this issue. Seemingly, the National Climate Change Commission Bill passed by the National Assembly is lost in the Presidency. The result is a costly dereliction of responsibility by our government, and a general sense of drift on climate change.
A suite of key issues are important in the government’s response to climate change. One is finance. Implementation of the Gas Master Plan or what the government now calls the Gas Revolution will cost tens of billions of dollars. So will the expansion of public transport infrastructure and renewable energy supply. Opening up the pipeline of domestic and international sources of finance for these programmes should be high on the agenda of our international climate engagement.
In previous negotiations, we have joined bigger development countries in endless bickering over access to high end climate change technologies. But women in Nigeria need everyday survival technologies such as clean cooking stoves and cheaper solar lanterns. Smoke inhalation from household cooking and the associated health impacts, particularly among women, are Nigeria’s silent killer. But clean cooking stoves save lives, money and our forests. These are urgent issues that deserve attention on the climate negotiations table.
As we prepare for the climate negations in Durban at the end of the year, our domestic needs for finance, technology and capacity building in delivering energy, infrastructure and resilience in agriculture should form the bedrock of our position. However, even if our government wakes up to its responsibilities and begins to take the right mitigation and adaptation steps at home, our actions alone will not be enough. Nigeria must step up pressure on richer countries to take on more ambitious emissions reduction targets. This will be our only hope of averting the floods of the future, and the costs we all must pay. And we must also be courageous enough to encourage our friends among the bigger developing countries like Brazil, China and India to take stronger and perhaps more binding actions. Otherwise, a climate deal without China and the bigger developing countries will be a waste of effort.
Ewah Otu Eleri is the Executive Director of the International Centre for Energy, Environment & Development, Abuja.
Survival of farmers in the face of climate variability…
By Hauwa Mustapha
That the climate is changing is no longer news. That it is gravely impacting on agriculture and food security has been proven by many recent studies including one carried out in 2010 by the Tubali Development Initiative in two rural communities each in northern and eastern Nigeria. It is evident from the study that small scale farmers are aware of climate change as it affects their crop yield and they are trying to respond in their own ways. However, these responses which range from spiritual prayers to other locally managed alternatives have not addressed the problem which shows the need to employ more modern and effective methods of response.
In both Enugu and Kaduna states rural farmers attest to the reality of the changing climate. The main manifestations are about three months delay in the onset of rains, the resulting scarcity of water due to drying up of streams and well water, excessive heat and less intense cooling wind from the Sahara (harmattan) between November and February. When the rains come, the heavy downpours lead to serious floods. The implications of this are late planting, poor crop yield and more time spent searching for water especially by women and children. In the case of heavy rains, the yam leaves shed prematurely, while in the north crops are usually damaged, along with farmers’ homes and rural schools, thus keeping children away from school for several days or weeks. Furthermore animals grow lean and often die due to prolonged dry season which creates lack of fodder and insufficient water.
Local understanding of what is causing these manifestations still largely points to the power of divine will.
The result of this change in climate over the years has been a decrease in income to the farmer with further consequences on their ability to pay school fees for children, and provide other basic needs for the family. Already, due to several years of decreasing agricultural output and income, many farmers especially the youth have migrated from their rural farmlands to urban areas often with deleterious consequences. Many social vices and youth unrest have been associated with these idle youth largely from the rural areas for whom farming has lost meaning and essence. To this teeming population of youth, commercial motorcycle riding, motor park touting, street begging and other menial jobs in the cities have become alternative sources of income regardless of all the security and safety risks associated with these ventures.
African rural farmers are classified among the ‘poorest of the poor’ yet their voices have been muted for too long in policy development fora, both nationally and internationally. Rural farmers would benefit immensely from a holistic approach which addresses policy development from an integrative political, socio-cultural and economic approach. Farmers are therefore looking to COP17 for a global framework that can foster development of adequate and appropriate local policy, to enable them to meet the challenges climate change has brought them.
Hauwa Mustapha is the Executive Coordinator of the Tubali Development Initiative, Kaduna.
A case for youth participation in climate change policy process
By Unico Iregbu Kalu
Climate change is fast introducing an alternative pathway to both national and global development. Twenty years ago, an average young man would engage on any available practice to eke out a living, without giving a thought to the impacts of his actions on both the environment and the climate. The effects of climate change are already here with us and it is the young people who will bear the greater brunt of the effects. As such, lifestyles and attitudes are gradually moving towards reducing the emission of greenhouse gases. Globally, young people are becoming aware of their roles in the fight against climate change and possible effects of their actions and inactions. Their contributions range from advocacy, public enlightenment, research, to actual demonstration of low carbon path through either engaging in recycling, planting trees or getting involved in the development of solar technologies.
However, it is absolutely sad that in Nigeria, the young people are not involved in the climate change decision process, both locally and internationally. Nigeria has been involved in several global efforts towards climate justice. It has participated in different international negotiations on the different thematic areas but the young people who are supposed to benefit from a safer climate are not part of the country’s official negotiation team. If there are national positions on the different building blocks within the climate negotiations, such positions are not put in the public domain. Nigerian youths are unaware of such national positions and did not have any input in their formulation.
Another round of climate change negotiations, in Durban, South Africa, is fast approaching. However, to date, Nigerian youths, and possibly the general population, are yet to identify what the country will be negotiating for in South Africa. The youths are unaware of how the country intends to ensure that the established ‘adaptation fund’ will benefit them; they do not know what is being discussed in the REDD+ and how that can translate into a more sustainable use of the forests around them; they are not aware of Nigeria’s preference for the established ‘technology mechanism’ which establishes the framework for the transfer of technologies from Annex 1 Parties to non Annex 1 Parties.
As the world comes together again in South Africa to discuss strategic initiatives to solve the climate crisis, young people, especially in Nigeria, expect more pronounced milestones that will ensure the immediate implementation of certain agreements already reached in the course of the negotiations. Young people also expect that more just decisions will be taken to help the countries most vulnerable to climate change. It should not stop at identifying negative effects of climate change, practical solutions should be urgently initiated.
Nigeria being among the most vulnerable countries to climate change needs to initiate requisite domestic policies and/or programs that will ensure it benefits from the many international mechanisms instituted to fight climate change in developing countries. Also, climate change reporting obligations for Nigeria should be given adequate attention, while internal policy reform should be embarked on to promote the fight against climate change through pursuing a low carbon path to growth and development. To achieve these goals, strong political will on the part of the government is required. Civil society groups should step up their advocacy and public awareness campaigns to enlighten the public and put more pressure on the government to take necessary actions. The youths should be involved in climate change policy process. They have the capacity to drive and sustain major national transformations, and the future is theirs.
Unico Iregbu Kalu is Interim Coordinator at the Nigeria Youth Climate Action Network.