Paying for our climate: The Nigerian case

The idea of paying for our climate, otherwise regarded as Climate Financing (CF), is a very important one that should be emphasised at a time like this. This is because the brunt of climate change (such as worsening food security, drought and desertification, land degradation, wide spread of diseases in the tropics, decline in agricultural productivity etc.) is taking its toll, most especially on countries (developing countries) that are poor, have less capacity to fight climate change threats and contribute less to climate change. Thus, in a bid to combat the causes and effects of climate change globally, nations through special agreements are to give and/or receive funds to address climate change. This step is important now to help solve this crisis, in the midst of the worst decade of humanitarian crisis over the world: the severe famine in Africa (Somalia), Niger-delta crisis, kidnappings, flooding, and the deep terrorism in northern Nigeria as examples among many others. However, nations, especially developing nations like Nigeria find it hard to access arrays of funds for several adaptation and mitigation projects like the drying Lake Chad, Ogoni clean-up project and energy from renewable sources etc. which are critical to the wellbeing of the Nigerian people, but whose progress are stalled, because of reasons ranging from corruption, lack of accountability and transparency in the use of previously disbursed funds.

According to Frank Ackerman (G-24 Discussion Paper No. 57), “climate change creates a crisis for economic development, which has historically been synonymous with high-carbon growth. It is essential for the world economy to make a rapid transition to a new, low-carbon style of growth. Developed countries might be expected to pay a large share of the total global costs of this transition, due to their ability to pay and their historical responsibility for causing the problem”. However, the size of climate financing to Nigeria over the years has not been comprehensive enough. The percentage share that gets to Nigeria relative to her size and her climate change challenges, as compared with other nations is disturbing and unconvincing. The share from the Climate Technology Fund (CTF), as seen from the CTF factsheet, revealed that Nigeria has U.S$250 million approved for it in the CTF financing, while her counterpart like South Africa has U.S$500 million and this is the trend with other funds from climate financing institutions. According to the department of climate change, Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Environment, it was gathered that till date, Nigeria has leveraged $63 million of multilateral funds for climate change projects [Overseas Development Institute, 2015]. This is broadly equal to that which Rwanda received, a country whose population is only 7 percent of Nigeria’s while we receive just a tenth of the total funding approved for South Africa.

Considering the level of our greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, vulnerabilities to climate change impacts (the drying Lake Chad, declining agricultural productivity, famine, water scarcity, Ogoni environmental issue in Rivers State, Nigeria and the Niger-Delta Crisis etc.) and the amount of funding to developing countries as a whole, we then see how unfair Nigeria has been treated in the area of climate financing. Also, domestically, Nigeria is yet to seriously, locally finance climate change projects from public-private partnerships, taxes, etc. According to a report from a journalist, Andrew Bomford, on 14th April 2006, he revealed that the Lake Chad which used to be 15,000 square miles of water now has less than 500 square miles of water due to global warming. This shrinking lake has to be resuscitated, as it is home to millions of people who depend on it for farming, fishing and animal husbandry. If not, social and economic problems, such as cases of terrorism, famine, drought etc. will continue to arise like we have seen in the nations that the lake borders.

Flooding is another climate change problem in Nigeria which is affecting everyone, destroying lives, properties and bringing untold losses to fish farming and farming in general. Adequate provision for stopping and guarding against flooding makes CF necessary for Nigeria. Worsening food security arising from irregular rainfall pattern has made food unavailable, inaccessible and even at an unbalanced ratio to people. Because of this problem of rainfall variability, herdsmen in northern Nigeria now push southward to feed their cattle on the cultivation of farmers, resulting in serious famer’s vs herdsmen clash in Nigeria. Grazing field needs to be created for these herdsmen, where they can satisfactorily feed their cattle, but serious funds are needed to achieve this; a role climate finance can play well. There is now a high rate of desertification and drought in Nigeria, especially in the north-east region as a result of global warming, thus making the few cultivable lands there uncultivable or unproductive anymore.

The Ogoni Clean-up project is also a big issue that needs swift implementation as residents of this community are seriously affected, their jobs and health inclusive. To execute and bring to reality the various approved projects like the Ogoni clean-up in Rivers state Nigeria estimated to gulp about $1 billion (USD), resuscitation of the dry Lake Chad estimated to gulp about $15 billion, the Green Great Wall, coastal protection structures project, electrification from renewable energy, technology transfer and human capacity building geared towards full green economy landscape, Nigeria will need massive international climate financing.