Why is it important for your country to stay below 1.5degrees? - Sussan Kwaghdoo Agber

President Mohammadu Buhari on Tuesday March 28, 2017, on behalf of Nigeria, signed the Instrument of Ratification of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change at the State House in Abuja.

 The Paris Agreement’s central aim is to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping the global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and to further pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

 Additionally, the agreement aims to strengthen the ability of countries to deal with the impacts of climate change. To reach these ambitious goals, appropriate financial flows, new technological and enhanced capacity building frameworks needs to be put in place, in order to support action especially in developing countries in line with each country’s national objectives. 

The Agreement also provides for enhanced transparency of action and support through a more robust transparency framework. Nigeria is strongly committed to the adoption of a legally binding universal agShareholders Commend FCMB's performance in 2016; Approve Dividend

The 4th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of FCMB Group Plc held on Friday, April 28, 2017 at the Shell Hall, Muson Centre Onikan, Lagos.

Shareholders of the Group applauded the financial institution for its resilience, dynamism and the enhanced performance recorded last year despite the challenging operating environment.reement to mitigate climate change which is an undeniable issue of concern to the international community, though Africa contributes less to global warming but the socio-economic and environmental consequences of climate change spare no nation, as evident in Nigeria through extreme weather variations, rising sea levels, encroaching desertification, crop failures, excessive rainfall, floods and land degradation. These developments have devastating human costs and are affecting food security, livelihoods and survival of Nigerians. 

Effects of climate change in Nigeria.

Nigeria is experiencing adverse climate conditions with negative impacts on the welfare of millions of people. Nigeria’s former Minister of Environment, Mrs. Amina Mohammed, stated that “Nigeria is one of the most climate-vulnerable countries in the world,” and that “by 2050, climate change could cost between 6 per cent and 30 per cent of the country’s GDP (USD 100 billion to USD 460 billion).
Floods
The most severe flood event in the country occurred between July and November 2012, killing 363 people with over 2.1 million people displaced. According to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), 30 of Nigeria's 36 states were affected by the floods. The worst in the last 40 years was estimated to have affected a total of seven million people with damages and losses worth N2.6 trillion. Persistent droughts and flooding, off season rains and dry spells have sent the growing seasons out of orbit, in a country where 70% of the population depend on a rain fed agriculture. Alarm bells are ringing with streams, rivers and lakes drying up with a reduction in river flow especially in the arid and semi-arid regions (Idris, 2011).

    

Desert encroachment

The issue of desertification and its associated dangers, especially as it affects the northern part of Nigeria, is being discussed without concrete evidence at tackling the crisis. Painting a more graphic picture of the danger, the Vanguard newspaper in a recent report stated that, not less than 200 villages have been wiped out by the natural disaster.
About 200 villages have disappeared from northern Nigeria on account of desert encroachment. This discovery was recently made by the Developmental Association for Renewable Energies, DARE, which was working on its conservancy project called Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). In fact, the Sahara desert is currently advancing southward at an estimated rate of 600metres per annum.The severity of this trend is being enforced by a multiplicity of factors spanning from overgrazing to woodland abuse and increasingly unreliable rainfall, thereby putting the livelihoods of over 55 million people in 10 northern states at serious risk.

Rising sea levels

Sea-level rise can is a product of global warming through two main processes: expansion of sea water as the oceans warm, and melting of ice over land. Global warming is predicted to cause significant rises in sea level over the course of the twenty-first century. Nigeria is one of the countries with high vulnerability with coastal zone impact of storm surges. Lagos is one of the cities projected to be the hardest hit by storm surge; by the year 2100, Sea level rise in Lagos State coastal areas could range between 0.32m and 1.41m; a 2-degree increase would be too severe for marine species to migrate to more tolerable regions as a result of increased ocean acidity and temperature. This would lead to the collapse of entire ecosystems and fisheries, resulting in the loss of livelihood for millions of residents.

A 2-degree Celsius increase would also lead to a more rapid sea level rise, which can result in the displacement of at least 10 million Nigerians living along the coasts. It is expected that extreme water levels from storm surges could reach well beyond 2m even at low sea level rise projection; the marine and mangrove ecosystems of Lagos are under threat from climate change and there is need to understand the changes taking place in the interest of a sustainable fishing industry and food security.

Erosion

Soil erosion is a major environmental problem in Nigeria, no matter the type of soil erosion in any given location, the consequences, in terms of what is relevant to soil conservation, are two-fold: general decrease in soil fertility (as a result of the action of sheet and/or wind erosion) and diminution of cultivable land as a result of the occurrence and expansion of gullies. The latter consequence has wider implications which include displacement of people following loss of residential houses and farm crops (Ofomati,1964, 1973), changes in the topography and hydrology of affected areas, and disruption of roads, such as at Ngwo Agu and at Agulu in Enugu State.
Global temperatures continue to rise, with a promise for more severe impacts of climate change. The year 2016 was the warmest on record, with an increase of 0.94 degree Celsius since 1850. If proper mechanisms for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions are not effectively implemented, extreme weather episodes are projected to increase in both frequency and intensity within the next century, as revealed in the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Unfortunately, Nigeria will be one of the nations that will be most affected by such impacts in a 1.5-degree-warmer world. 

Food security and conflicts

Climate change has caused desertification in the far north, and has led to extended drought and an estimated 20% drop in crop yields across the rest of Nigeria. Nigeria has 22 million cows that consume about 1 billion gallons of water per day and 500 million kilograms of grass and forage crops. The herdsmen-farmer clashes, which have resulted in the death of thousands of rural dwellers over the past two decades, usually arise from disagreements over the use of essential resources such as farmland, grazing areas and water. The stock value of Nigeria’s cattle population is about N3.4 trillion or $16.2 billion at N150, 000 per head (Fabiyi and Otunugu, 2016). The intensification of the Boko Haram crisis in the last five years has caused nomadic Fulani herdsmen to abandon their foraging grounds in the North East. The combination of a growing cattle population, the effects of climate change on the availability of water and forage crops, as well as the lack of access to North Eastern foraging grounds due to the Boko Haram crisis are the proximate causes of the increasing tensions between farming communities and Fulani herdsmen in the country. 

Disease outbreak linked to climate change

Between 26 January and march 2015, the Nigeria centre for disease control of the Federal Ministry of Health notified the World Health Organization (WHO) of 625 suspected cases of meningococcal disease, including 50 deaths, a bacterial disease caused by infection of several microorganisms; among these, Neisseria meningitidis which causes bacterial meningitis.

Malaria

Malaria is a major public health problem in Nigeria as it accounts for more cases of deaths than any other country in the World. Malaria is a risk for 97% of Nigeria’s population; the remaining 3% of the population live in malaria free highlands. There is an estimated 100 million malaria cases over 300,000 deaths per year in Nigeria. Malaria contributes to an estimated 11% of maternal mortality.

Cholera

This bacterium thrives in warmer waters and causes diarrhea so severe that it can kill within a week. Without improved sanitation, rising global temperatures will increase deadly outbreaks. In the early 2015, 13 of 36 states were recorded with Anambra, Kano, Rivers and Ebonyi states being the worst affected deaths in Nigeria. By the end of 2015, 2,108 cases had been reported with 97 deaths (IFRC, 2016).

Sleeping sickness

Global warming will change the distribution of the tsetse fly that carries the disease, now affecting more than 300,000 people yearly in Africa. Victims become lethargic and may suffer severe swelling of the lymph nodes. The first peak of the epidemic in Nigeria was between 1931-1940 when more than 370,000 persons were diagnosed. The period between 1981-1990 witnessed a sudden upsurge in infection rates which suggests that the disease may be on the increase unnoticed. Analysis of the mortality rate for the available data 1970-1979 showed a total mortality of 0.003% out of approximately 28,000 infected persons. The peak rate was in 1974 with 18.1% deaths followed by 1972 with 17.7% deaths. The overall mortality rate was 0.11 per 10,000 persons.

Tuberculosis

Both the human and livestock varieties of TB are likely to increase, particularly the latter as droughts bring livestock and wildlife into closer proximity at watering holes. According to the former Nigeria’s state for Health, Dr Khaliru Alhassan stated that Nigeria is ranked 11th among 22 high burden countries in the World ,said the 22 countries accounted for 80 per cent of Global Tb burden, with a total of 180,000 cases occurring annually in Nigeria.

Yellow fever

Mosquitoes spread this disease, which causes fever and jaundice like symptoms between wildlife and humans, and will likely spread into new areas as the climate changes. According to a recent report published in Nature, the biggest outbreak of yellow fever in Nigeria began in 1986 and ultimately infected 116,000 people and killed 24,000.

Ebola

This virus is lethal to humans and other primates and has no cure. What is clear is that outbreaks tend to follow unusual downpours or droughts in central Africa- a likely result of climate change. Ebola virus disease occurred in Nigeria in 2014; according to World Health Organization 20 cases and 8 deaths were confirmed in Lagos and Rivers states.

Mitigation and Adaption measures in Nigeria.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (“IPCC”) stated in its 2014 report that the risks of climate change are unevenly distributed and by 2050, Africa will be the most badly affected continent. Seven of the ten countries most at risk from climate change are in Africa (Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Nigeria, Chad, Ethiopia, Central African Republic and Eritrea).Yet; Africa contributes only four percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. 

The region (Nigeria) is the most vulnerable to climate change given its low capacity to adapt and respond economically, politically and geographically. Article 7 of the Paris Agreement establishes “the global goal on adaptation” to “protect people, livelihoods and ecosystems” with a unique focus on developing countries. The Paris Agreement specifically mentions “adaptive capacity” and how individual countries intend to carry out measures such as resilience mechanisms, disaster risk management and innovation of relevant technologies. The main challenge is to keep climate change from becoming a catastrophe.

Mitigation measures seeks to limit climate change by reducing the emissions of green house gases(GHGs) and by enhancing ‘sink’ opportunities, this means reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases and black soot to prevent the degree of climate change becoming unmanageable. This includes promotion of increased use of renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, geothermal etc, development of energy efficient buildings, promotion of energy saving transportation systems and use of mass transits and enhancing removals of carbon dioxide through improved management of forestry and agro-ecosystems for enhanced carbon recovery and carbon storage. Afforestation and reforestation are measures that can be taken to enhance biological carbon sequestration. 

The IPCC calculated that a global programme of 2050 involving reduced deforestation, enhanced natural regeneration of tropical forests and worldwide re-afforestation could sequester 6.0-8.7 trillion metric tons of atmosphere carbon, equivalent to 12-15% of projected CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning for the period. Agro-forestry systems in particular contribute simultaneously to buffering farmers against climate variability and changing climates, and reducing atmospheric loads of GHGs. With the current advance made in the Greenwall project, Nigeria can focus on the potential to use forests as one of the strategies towards becoming carbon neutral.

Adaptation measures aims to alleviate the adverse impacts through a wide range of system specific actions, this includes making wider use of technologies to harvest water, to conserve soil moisture and to use water more effectively in areas where there is a decrease in rainfall, utilizing water management to prevent water-logging, erosions, and nutrient leaching in areas where there is an increase in rainfall and using seasonal climate forecasting to reduce production risk. 

Even though a 1.5-degree Celsius increase would still lead to more extreme impacts due to climate change, a 2-degree rise would still be less suitable for promoting sustainable development and lessening ecological disturbances. Hence, Nigerians need the world to warm as less as possible to allow for a more efficient implementation of its mitigation and adaptation strategies in order to stay below 1.5 degrees.

Written By
Sussan Kwaghdoo Agber

Department of Forestry, Wildlife and Range Management
Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, Nigeria