Trucks, with items, deserted on Nigeria's East-West freeway reduce off by flood in October 2022. Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP by way of Getty Images
Climate change is not only a buzzword or a subject for political debates. It is an actual and urgent concern that impacts each facet of our lives. The results of local weather change are already being felt worldwide, from rising sea ranges to heatwaves, droughts, floods, lack of biodiversity, meals insecurity and extra.
In Nigeria, local weather change has contributed to the nation’s mounting financial and social challenges. The nation has acknowledged the necessity to transfer to a low-carbon future. Yet local weather change was largely absent from the 2022 presidential marketing campaign manifestos.
The newly elected authorities, led by Bola Ahmed Tinubu, faces quite a few speedy challenges. Among them are widespread violence and insecurity; excessive inflation and foreign money depreciation; and a mounting debt burden.
But local weather change can’t be ignored. It has instantly contributed to Nigeria’s crises. For instance, excessive flooding in 2022 displaced 1.4 million individuals and fuelled meals inflation.
Read extra:
Nigeria floods: 4 methods they have an effect on meals safety
Extreme warmth and erratic rainfall, each penalties of local weather change, have intensified useful resource competitors between farmers and herders, resulting in communal clashes.
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Herder-farmer battle within the Sahel wants a brand new description: why ‘eco-violence’ suits
As a catastrophe danger discount and local weather change adaptation knowledgeable, I argue that local weather change ought to be central to authorities’s planning. This is to stop future infrastructure injury, create financial alternatives, and supply varied social and environmental advantages.
Nigeria’s new authorities ought to take motion on local weather change, even amid all the opposite urgent points. Much of this motion considerations the transfer from reliance on fossil fuels to cleaner vitality sources, also known as the vitality transition.
Nigeria is a serious hydrocarbon producer and holds the most important pure fuel reserves on the continent. It due to this fact has the potential to play a major position in shaping how international locations handle a transition away from hydrocarbon fuels to cleaner vitality sources resembling photo voltaic, wind and hydro energy.
Although Nigeria’s dire public funds restrict its means to spend money on renewable vitality, the federal government can nonetheless take steps. It has made a begin with eradicating fossil gasoline subsidies. Other steps, which analysis has proven to be working in Morocco and Rwanda, may very well be:
efficient flood danger administration
tax and obligation exemptions for elements utilized in photo voltaic options
adapting current initiatives within the energy, agriculture and transport sectors to advertise clear vitality
prioritising infrastructure initiatives that can appeal to non-public funding within the vitality transition.
Solutions
Before 2018, renewable vitality era tools was eligible for tax exemptions. But the tax breaks ended, leading to increased retail costs for photo voltaic options. A examine by the African Clean Energy Technical Assistance Facility calculated that the advantages of cheaper photo voltaic merchandise (vitality entry and job creation) would have outweighed the tax revenues forgone.
The new president may reinstate the incentives for photo voltaic merchandise.
The authorities also needs to act urgently to handle flood dangers. It may spend money on consciousness campaigns to coach residents on the hazards of flooding and learn how to put together and reply to flood occasions.
Read extra:
What Nigerian cities can do to manage higher with flood danger
Sustainable city planning and land-use administration could make city areas much less susceptible to flooding. This includes implementing constructing codes and zoning laws, safeguarding pure buffers resembling wetlands, and utilizing inexperienced infrastructure to handle stormwater runoff.
Read extra:
Wetlands do the job of high-priced know-how, if we allow them to
Thirdly, the federal government can evaluate current initiatives within the energy, agriculture and transport sectors to advance local weather motion at a modest value. For instance, the Presidential Power Initiative is a partnership between the Nigerian authorities and Siemens Energy AG to improve vitality infrastructure. It’s a chance to allow the mixing of renewable vitality. The new administration ought to honour the agreements signed and proceed to fund them.
The authorities may also upskill smallholder farmers on climate-smart agriculture strategies. These embrace adopting flood- and drought-tolerant seed varieties, putting in early warning techniques for climate, and coaching farmers to enhance land productiveness.
Read extra:
Climate pioneers: how small farmers may very well be main the way in which in the direction of sustainable agriculture
A fourth space the place authorities may act on local weather is infrastructure for the vitality transition. For instance, investing in fashionable grids that encourage non-public funding in photo voltaic and wind energy.
The authorities may also companion with multilateral establishments and improvement banks to mobilise the finance for local weather motion.
Read extra:
COP27 in evaluate: local weather talks delivered massive beneficial properties for Africa, but in addition a number of challenges
The African Development Bank’s Desert to Power initiative, which goals to construct a 10GW photo voltaic park throughout the Sahel area of Africa, together with Nigeria, presents a chance for the federal government to draw funding within the nation’s renewable vitality sector.
Finally, the federal government should recognise the importance of the local weather disaster and the challenges it poses to Nigeria’s improvement. Climate motion have to be coordinated throughout sectors and built-in into all authorities insurance policies.
Climate technique
The authorities may also have interaction with civil society organisations, academia and the non-public sector on local weather technique.
Read extra:
Why Nigeria’s non secular leaders ought to study extra about local weather change
Such a method may information the nation’s transition to a low-carbon financial system and the allocation of sources to local weather motion.
The vitality transition is a chance for Nigeria to diversify its financial system, scale back its reliance on fossil fuels, and create new job alternatives. Climate motion will help to deal with a few of Nigeria’s most urgent challenges, resembling frequent flooding, meals insecurity, poverty and inequality.
Olasunkanmi Habeeb Okunola is a Visiting Scientist on the United Nations University, Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS).
