By Mansur Bako
I congratulate NatureNews for organising this programme with a very scintillating theme, “Climate Finance and Sustainable Environment in Nigeria”.
This is very timely as issues of climate finance and environmental sustainability have now become the hot issues for discussions globally. No doubt, access to climate finance is critical in addressing the numerous damages done to our environment as a result of extreme weather events caused by climate change.
The question, though, is where would the funds come from? For us in the developing world that suffer equal or more of the impacts of climate change than the developed world and for which we have very little or no contribution to causing the phenomenon (climate change), this question is one that must be answered as a matter of necessity and urgency. The promise of the developed global North is still nowhere near reality. It was at only at COP27 in Egypt that agreement to set up the Loss and Damage Fund was reached, nobody knows how long it will further take to actualize it. Proposed large scale private sector investments required to significantly reduce emissions, notably in sectors that emit large quantities of greenhouse gases have remained concepts on the tables of policy and decision makers.
Climate finance is equally important for adaptation, for which significant financial resources will be required to enable societies and governments to adapt to the adverse effects and reduce the impacts of climate change.
Needless to say, therefore, climate finance must play a pivotal role as emerging markets and developing economies like ours, seek to curb greenhouse gas emissions and build resilience to the impacts of climate change.
It is important that our approach to generating climate financing must change from being too expectant of hand-outs from the global North and radically look inward to utilizing whatever God-given resources, which were exploited by the North during its industrial revolution and, which caused so much of the GHG emissions that gave us Climate Change and its negative impacts on the environment. As it is now, there is no level-playing field in the approach to curbing emissions. The North is far ahead in technological expertise that energy transitions can be seamless. But, for those of us in the South, the story is very different. We neither have the technology nor the required funds to go shopping. It is therefore advocated a critical review of our commitments to the Paris Agreements be undertaken, especially in view of recent developments where even those rich nations are having to re-open their coal plants in order to address hitherto unforeseen situations like the Russia-NATO-Ukraine crisis.
Let me use this opportunity to advise that whatever proposals or concepts we as a nation will advance going forward, must incorporate the findings of climate science to highlight the impacts of Climate Change in our communities. It is only when we are able to prove that adverse impacts of climate change still occurred even after adhering to measures and advisories issued by early warning agencies like NiMet that investors and corporate climate finance providers will take interest in our proposals and concepts. It is on this note that I want to assure this gathering and the nation in general, that NiMet as an agency of government saddled with responsibility to provide weather and climate information to the general public, for socio-economic development and safety of life and property, will continue to work with all stakeholders to achieve the desired objectives. We are already deploying our capabilities through numerical weather prediction technics to issue spatial forecasts, deterministic products and high-impact-based forecasts, using ensemble products in various sectors.
Prof Bako is the Director General and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Meteorological Agency