APPROPRIATE government policy framework coupled with adaptation and mitigation strategies of climate change will help reduce vulnerability of the populace and speed up development efforts in the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET).”
This was the position of the NIMET director general, Professor Mansur Matazu while speaking on ‘Climate issues, opportunities and solutions’, as hosted by the Youth Consultation on Climate Change and Nationally Determined Contributions in Nigeria, at the British High Commission.
Matazu at the event explained how the agency had built infrastructure, developed competencies for effective service delivery of its service as indigenous but international in nature with global relevance.
According to the Nimet boss, with global relevant and visibility with Government support, Nimet’s products and services were available and multi-sectoral in applications and increasingly important to understand.
Stressing that the government alone cannot carry all the needed responsibility to move the system forward successfully, the NIMET DG emphasised importance of effective collaborative partnerships as he identified Integration of meteorological information into planning and implementation of development programs as strategies for managing weather-related risks in all sectors of the economy.
His words: “Effective Collaboration with MDAs, State Governments, NGOs, Universities and Research Institutions on sustainable strategies to reduce the effects of climate change in Nigeria. These collaborative partnerships will only be sustainable with youths as Climate Actors and integral PART of the solution.
“These NiMet services are key instrument to reduce effects of changing climate and restore the degrading ecosystem in the country. NiMet, as part of our statutory responsibility will continue to provide meteorological early warning system, identifying severe weather events related to climate change valuable.”
Matazu attributed the efforts embarked on by the agency to its move to make regular weather and climate predictions help the public mitigate effects of climate change by way of Early Warning Systems (EWSs) and regular assessment of impacts of climate change.
NIMET he said also embarked on regular assessment of climate change and its impacts on the socio-economy activities of the country, through publications which include: climate review bulletins (now State of the Climate in Nigeria), agromet decadal review bulletins, drought, and flood bulletins, among others.
Matazu used the opportunity to state how in the past 150–200 years, considerable changes had taken place in the composition of atmospheric gases due to natural processes and human activities, adding that as increasing energy consumption, industrialisation, intensive agricultural practices, urbanisation and rural development, etc which has led to rise in global temperature and high spatial and temporal variability.
He remarked that the changing temperature regime has resulted in considerable changes in the precipitation (rainfall) pattern and a changing climate will result in considerable changes in natural vegetation and in land use practices.
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