22nd May, 2023
The recent poverty data in many African countries and Nigeria in particular shows that the continent remains the most exposed to the adverse impact of climate change, says Prof. Abubakar Sulaiman, Director-General (DG), National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS).
Sulaiman spoke on Monday at a four-day workshop tagged: “West African Regional Parliamentarian Capacity Strengthening on Climate Change,” held in Ikeja, Lagos.
The programme was organised by the African Group of Negotiators Expert Support (AGNES) in collaboration with the NILDS and The National Council on Climate Change.
The workshop has the theme: “Fostering Climate Change Action through Legislative Measures: Perspectives for the West African Region.”
According to Sulaiman, Climate change is today’s single most important challenge, but noted that many countries are still quite poorly equipped to deal with its undeniable and increasingly profound impacts.
He said evidence from the best available science showed that unless countries act collectively, the world might not be able to attain the Paris Agreement target of 1.5 degrees.
“Although the general narrative is that African countries contribute less than 4% of global emissions, the recent poverty data in many African countries and Nigeria in particular shows that our continent remains the most exposed to the adverse impact of climate change.
“Most African countries have continued to experience rising debt profiles. The reliance of our agricultural system on rainfall would aggravate the food crisis situation in Africa thus, pushing our continent to borrow for food in the medium to long term. It is therefore vital that African countries work together with the rest of the world to adopt policies that would deliver on climate change adaption and mitigation policies.
“Blaming historic polluters might offer Africa the opportunity to benefit from climate funds. However, we must act together to ensure that choices in resource allocation, reward sustainable consumption and production. We are 7 years away from the SDGs 2030.
“Unless we take deliberate measures to pursue green growth and sustainable development, the positive results we have recorded in other sectors would be rolled back by the adverse impact of climate change through flooding, increased warming, desertification, and deforestation,” he stated.
The DG charged parliamentarians to ensure that laws passed in the countries that made up AGNES, and the allocation of resources in their national budgets as well as oversight of ministries, departments, and agencies in their countries, were conducted in a manner that enabled commitment to zero net emissions.
He proffered that to address the challenge of global climate change, countries required local actions that would complement global efforts, adding that the Global Climate Fund (GCF) provided an opportunity for developed countries to support developing countries in national climate actions on adaptation, mitigation, and disaster risk reduction.
“However, the funding arrangement requires these countries to mobilize domestic resources as well. As legislators, therefore you are to use the opportunity you have through the budget defence to ask MDAs to respond to questions on how they are contributing to attain net zero in the sectors they oversight.
“Through oversight, you can ensure that the public and private sector enterprises to which you have oversight jurisdiction, comply with net zero emission targets,” he said.
A representative of AGNES, Prof. Raymond Kasei, said the expectation of the body at the end of the workshop would be to sensitize members of Parliaments in the area of climate change and more or less strengthen them in the legislation oversight activities within their various parliaments.
“We also seek that they will share ideas because some countries are further ahead in legislation in the areas of climate change and environmental development, as opposed to others which are public about this task and therefore the learning platform would be created for them to share ideas and maybe get over some issues that countries may avoid their content,” he said.