Nigeria showing keen interest in climate change activities

The Ministry of Environment's Special Climate Change Unit has said the country is right on track, ahead of the December Copenhagen Summit on climate change. According to it, the second key National Communication, an obligation under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, will be ready before the end of this month, six years after the first was produced.

Under the convention, Nigeria is expected to produce four communications components, four in-depth review summaries, a demonstrable progress report and the National Adaptation Programme of Action. Only the first was produced in 2003 and the second and other commitments have been rather slow in coming.

The Head of the government's Climate Change Unit, Victor Fodake, told NEXT that the second will be completed in a couple of weeks along with the Adaptation Plan. The National Adaptation Programme of Action is carried out in partnership with the Building Nigeria's Response to Climate Change (BNRCC).

According to him, "We should be more concerned about the industrialised nations. For our obligations, we are not behind in any way." The response to climate change being implemented by the Nigeria Environmental Study/Action Team, on October 21, 2009, launched pilot and research projects that targeted unveiling indigenous adaptation techniques to the threat of climate change. The team awarded five contracts to local researchers for the pilot projects and four for research projects that will create the awareness of the challenge and find alternatives to life styles that promote them particularly.

Adaptation awareness

"Nigerians need to be aware of climate change, the options for adaptations and the types of adaptations," said David Okali, a professor and chairman of NEST during the launch. "To do these would be difficult without knowing the facts." The projects, backed by the Canadian government, are to be carried out by Nigerian researchers, through 2011, Mr. Okali said. The pilot projects are being undertaken across the three agro-ecological zones of Nigeria, mostly the coastal and rain forest zones in the south, the Nigeria Sahel and northern savannah.

According to the team, the project will test local adaptation strategies that include finding alternatives to deforestation, controlling erosion, conserving water and developing long term community adaptation plans.

The research projects will explore the gender based impacts of climate change, explore indigenous adaptation methods and develop computer scenarios to explore climate impacts.

Experts have said the nation is at grave risk of climate change because of its over 800km coastline, one the continent's longest. A sea level rise of just 0.2m, resulting from climate change, can generate floods over 3,400 square kilometre of its coast land. Also in the northern part of the country, two-thirds of the nation's land cover, is prone to drought and desertification.

The response to climate projects, which should help usher a national adaptation plan, is expected to provide realisable alternatives to the rural dwellers and enhance adaptation measures that would protect against the threats.

"They will allow climate change adaptation measures to be tested at the local level, they inform future activities in other communities and finally, they inform national and state governments as they work to develop adaptation plans," said Emmanuel Nzegbule, the Programmes Director at NEST/BNRCC.

In spite of the rising threat to mostly developing economies, there are already fears ahead of the Copenhagen conference that the industrialised nations, called the Annex 1 parties under the UN convention, are making plans to disembark from the commitments achieved to reduce gas emissions at Kyoto, Japan in 1997.

Mr. Fodake said now is time for Africans particularly to act.