Reps, stakeholders move to save Nigeria from climate change impacts

LAWMAKERS have assured that adequate
legislative provisions would be in
budgetary allocations to address the
impacts of climate change and save the
future generation of Nigerians.
A meeting was held recently between the
House of Representatives Committee on
Climate Change and officials of
Ministries, Departments and Agencies
(MDAs), to exchange ideas, experiences
and also to chart a reliable course on
how to tackle devastations in the country
occasioned by climate change.
Chairman of the Committee, Sam
Onuigbo said the purpose is to enable
the House panel to know the concrete
and verifiable preparations the MDAs
have made towards achieving the Paris
Agreement objective of stabilizing the
concentrations of climate change
damaging emissions in the atmosphere
at a level that would prevent dangerous
impact on environment and humans.
Recall that President Mohammadu
Buhari has already set the pace and the
tone on climate change governance
through his declarations at national and
global fora. But the committee says going
forward, the parliament is further
seeking to address the questions as to:
what the MDAs are doing, what practical
steps they have taken towards
actualizing the Presidential and national
commitments?
Chairman of the Committee, Sam
Onuigbo said the National Assembly is
constitutionally vested with the power to
make laws for the peace, order and good
governance of the federation, hence the
lower chamber will not sit idly by and
wait for the train to leave the station
before it starts asking questions.
Minister of Information and Culture, Lai
Mohammed who spoke at the beginning
of the session, blamed the rise in the
activities of Boko Haram in the north
east as well as the recurrent clashes
between herdsmen and local farmers to
the effect of climate change in the
country.
Addressing the stakeholders, Onuigbo
explained that the meeting was therefore
to interact, ascertain the impact of
climate change in the work of the MDAs
in view of the negative effects
“vigorously and violently confronting
and almost overpowering human
survival efforts and threatening the
earth.”
He said further that the mission of the
House committee on climate change will
be to, through legislative intervention in
line with the House of Representatives’
Legislative Agenda, promote resource
allocation to climate-friendly
programmes that have the potential to
enhance Nigeria’s resilience to climate
impact across all the economic sectors.
Underscoring the importance of
legislative intervention, the Chairman
has assured that the committee is
determined to re-strategize on climate
change governance in order to
harmonize national efforts towards
delivering on the country’s
commitments.
According to him, the committee will
evaluate previous efforts towards climate
change impact awareness, mitigation
and adaptation, challenges associated
with previous efforts; budgetary
provisions to improve on the efforts; and
need for more integrated approach to
climate change project design and
implementation.
In doing this, he said it might be
necessary to reconsider the 2016 budget
proposal submitted by the MDAs to
accommodate some of the new
challenges, especially as they affect the
national contributions.
Members who spoke during the
interaction said reconsideration of the
budget 2016 proposals is particularly
necessary to identify likely policy and
budgetary gaps and to lay foundation for
the actualization of the overall aim of
the contributions. The meeting,
according to the members, was therefore
essentially designed for the stakeholders
to strategically progress from the current
mandate-defined efforts to new and
collaborative initiatives for lowering
emissions.
But, the committee chairman expressed
concern that the parliamentary
intervention provided by the House of
Representatives may not translate to
reality if the seeming apathy as shown
by authorities of some critical MDAs and
other stakeholders continue.
Specifically, some of the critical
stakeholders including the ministers of
Petroleum Resources, Agriculture and
Rural Development, Communication
Technology, Health, Solid Minerals, and
Women Affairs, were absent at the
interactive session seeking urgent
intervention to tackle the effects of
climate change devastation.
Others who shunned the meeting were
Bank of Industries (BOI), Bank of
Agriculture (BOA), NAFDAC, PTDF,
USAID, DFID, Water Resources Budget
and National Planning where absent
during the meeting with the climate
change panel.
Meanwhile, the committee has called for
increased funding for the relevant
agencies addressing the issues of climate
change, even as he stressed the need for
increased awareness on climate change
mitigation.
He said: “After a conference of 196
nations in Paris, France reached an
agreement on how to limit global
warming to the pre-industrial age of 2
Celsius and the negative impacts of
climate change, we are here to exchange
ideas, experiences and also to chart a
reliable course on how to save this and
future generations.”