Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajia Sadiya Umar Farouq, has expressed the commitment of the Federal Government of Nigeria to scale up climate change adaption in the country through her ministry, so as to build community resilient and adaptation practices to mitigate and reduce the consequent of climate change.
Speaking during a side event on “Scaling up Climate Change Adaptation in Nigeria” organised by her Ministry in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Environment at COP27 taking place in Egypt, the Minister explained: “Our communities are composed of the poor, elderly, children and persons living with disabilities the addition effect of climate change has rendered them more vulnerable than they already are.”
Consequently, the Minister expressed the resolve of her ministry to mitigate the impact of climate change on the vulnerable members of the society through the scaling up of climate change adaptation in Nigeria.
She stated that, from the humanitarian perspective, her Ministry would work with the Nigerian adaptation plan which seeks to reduce the vulnerability of communities to the impact of climate change by building adaptive capacity and resilience, adding that the plan also advocates integration of climate change adaptation to relevant new and existing policies programme and activities as well as developing planning processes and strategies.
“The reason we are here today is to harness and discourse good practices programme and strategies that other countries are using to reduce vulnerabilities to climate change.
“We want to know how to build adaptive capacities and resilience in line with national and international policies and commitment in disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.
“Specifically, we want to know how to identify and map out climate change risk better. We harmonise input and launch a people centred climate change adaptation in collaboration with key partners like the Federal Ministry of Environment and other relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).”
Earlier in his remarks, the Minister of Environment, Mohammed Abdullahi, quoting the report of the inter-governmental panel on climate change affirmed that, by 2050, many coastal mega cities like Lagos, Port Harcourt and other low lying coastal cities in Nigeria will in a century witness weather catastrophe every year, affecting millions of people and properties and causing devastation.
Consequently, Nigeria has taken bold step to develop the Adaptation Communication guided by the NAP Global Network, the adaptation communication will play a central role in identifying national needs and enable international follow-up while informing future action, driving ambition and contributing information for the global stock taking.
“It is obvious that the challenges of climate change are enormous and since no individual Ministry can confront the challenges alone, we are calling for joint and cooperative efforts to tackle the problem. It is therefore pertinent that we begin to take our pledges into action as takeaway from COP27,” he said.
