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By Fatima Saka
Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajia Sadiya Umar Farouq has said the commitment of the Federal government of Nigeria is to scale up climate change adaptation in Nigeria through ministries, to build community resilient and adaptation practices to mitigate the consequence of climate change.
The minister made this statement on Thursday at the ongoing COP27 in Egypt, during an event tagged: “Scaling up Climate Change Adaptation in Nigeria”, organized by the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment at COP 27, which took place in Egypt.
Minister of Environment Barr Mohammed Abdullahi explained that “Our communities are composed of the poor, elderly, children and persons living with disabilities; the additional effect of climate change has rendered them more vulnerable than they already are“.
The Minister further resolved to mitigate the impact of climate change on the vulnerable members of the society through the scaling up of climate change adaptation in Nigeria.
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Farouq, stating that from the humanitarian perspective of the ministry, will work with the Nigerian adaptation plan which seeks to reduce the vulnerability of communities to the impact of climate change by building adaptive capacity and resilience, adding that the plan also advocate integration of climate change adaptation into relevant new and existing policies, programme and activities as well as developing planning process and strategies.
“The reason we are here today, is to harness and discourse good practices, programme and strategies that other countries are using to reduce vulnerabilities to climate change”.
“We want to know how to build adaptive capacities and resilience in line with national and international policies and commitment in disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation”.
“Specifically we want to know how to identify and map out climate change risk better, we harmonize input and launch a people centered climate change adaptation in collaboration with key partners like the federal ministry of environment and other relevant ministries, departments and agencies.”
In addition, the Minister of Environment emphasized that the intergovernmental panel on climate change affirmed that by 2050, many coastal megacities, giving an instance of Lagos, Port Harcourt and other low line coastal cities in Nigeria in century, witnesses weather catastrophes every year affecting millions of people and properties and causing devastation.
Adding that, Nigeria has taken bold steps to develop the Adaptation Communication guided by the NAP Global Network. Adaptation communication will play a central role in identifying national needs and enable international follow up while informing future action, driving ambition and contributing information for the global stock taking.
“It is obvious that the challenges of climate change are enormous and since no individual ministry can confront the challenges alone, we are calling for joint and cooperative efforts to tackle the problem. It is therefore pertinent that we begin to take our pledges into action as we take away from COP 27” He said.
