Nigeria, at talks in Bonn, urges rapid progress on climate action

The Federal Government has called on governments to make swift progress on taking forward climate action and finalising the rulebook of the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Minister of State for the Environment and Head of Nigeria’s delegation, Ibrahim Usman Jibril, made the call at a joint high-level segment of the United Nations (UN) climate conference, which ends today.

The 23rd session of the Conference of Parties (COP23) attracted ministers from around the world and about 25 Heads of State and Government. Negotiations at the technical level have been reasonably successful.

Jibril, who supported the call from the African member-states on climate change actions based on the principles and provisions of the convention and to ensure that differentiation is clearly reflected, said up-scaling funding to address the impacts of climate change on livelihoods and ecosystems through an over-arching financial architecture to finance adaptation and mitigation measures is of high priority to Nigeria

The minister reiterated Nigeria’s commitment to seeing that current areas of contentions with respect to the financial mechanism, adaptation frame-work and institutional arrangements, technology transfer and capacity-building are resolved to the benefit of all parties.

He said Nigeria had developed a robust national sectoral action plan across the five priority sectors; and had also embraced issuance of green bond as an alternative source of funding green projects that would reduce emissions and provide robust climate infrastructure needed in Nigeria.

The minister stated that Nigeria is witnessing the adverse effect of climate change in all its forms; from rapid desertification in the North to humongous flooding in the middle-belt region, and coastal erosion in the southern part of the country.

He, therefore, reiterated call for international collaboration and partnership to resuscitate the Lake Chad Basin, which supports the livelihood of over five million individuals and shrunk to about 10 per cent of its original size.

“This situation has contributed immensely to insecurity and several communal clashes due to diminishing sources of livelihood of the inhabitants,” the minister said.