The continued heavy rainfall in Umuahia, the Abia State capital, as well as other places in the Southern part of the country, including Lagos, is nothing to worry about.
A weather expert, Professor Nasiru Idris, who is the Dean Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Nassarawa State University, Keffi, made the clarification while interacting with Correspondent, Innocent Onoh, in Lagos.
Chairman, the Senate Committee on Environment, Sen. Oluremi Tinubu, has advocated more funding for the environment ministries and agencies to function optimally.
Tinubu made the call in Ibadan, Oyo State, on Tuesday, November 6, 2018 during a courtesy call on Gov. Abiola Ajimobi in his office.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Tinubu had led other senators in the committee to Ibadan on oversight function to some agencies.
Tinubu urged the Federal Government to investigate the budget of the ministry, saying it was too small for the ministry and agencies to perform optimally.
“The budget for the environment ministry is very small and there is need for government to look into it.
“From our oversight visit to Forestry Research Institute of Nigeria (FRIN), we discovered that the institution needs lot of funding to function optimally,’’ she said.
She said that the delegation had during their visit to FRIN, presented a document containing useful environmental laws recently enacted to make the institution function maximally.
The lawmaker said that the new laws guaranteed recognition for FRIN to deal with international organisations, given it autonomy to act on environmental issues and colleges under FRIN tertiary status.
Tinubu commended Dr Sola Adepoju, FRIN Director-General for the tremendous transformation witnessed at the institute, which she described as “amazing and overwhelming’’.
“The quality of work carried out at FRIN, particularly materials and content is overwhelming. The D-G has utilised the resources allocated to the institute very well.
Responding, Ajimobi commended the senate committee for its effort toward ensuring that people enjoyed a better environment.
The governor said that the role of the environment ministry, agencies and other relevant stakeholders was very important in repositioning of the country.
He said that the state had the potential of becoming the food basket of Nigeria, considering its landmass and concentration of agricultural research institutes.
“Our administration is much committed to infrastructural development and urbanisation of the state. Our target is to make the state the third largest in Africa within 25 years,” he said.
Ajimobi said that the government had been trying to achieve the feat by doubling the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the state.
He commended the Senate delegation, promising that the state would harness potential in the research institutes.
NAN reports that on the senate delegation were Sen. Foster Ogola and Mr Sanni Lawan, Clerk of the committee.
By Akeem Abas
Accra, the capital city of Ghana, will play host to the Africa Climate Week 2019, scheduled fo hold from March 18 to 22.
The Ghanaian event will be the first Regional Climate Week to be hosted next year; and will be followed by the Asia-Pacific and Latin America and Caribbean Climate Weeks, the dates of which are still being confirmed.
Africa Climate Week will bring together diverse actors from the public and private sectors and will be instrumental in demonstrating that there is genuine international support for stepping-up climate action.
Specifically, the event will focus on how engagement between Parties to the UN-led international process to address climate change and non-Party stakeholders can be further strengthened in key sectors for Africa, including energy, agriculture and human settlements. It will also showcase the role of future carbon markets to achieve enhanced climate action, towards the goal of sustainable development.
Building on the success of last year’s event in Nairobi, the intention is that Africa Climate Week 2019 will become a wholly inclusive, “go-to” hub for showcasing groundbreaking action in the region, particularly in the lead-up to the United Nations Secretary-General’s Climate Summit in September 2019.
To that end, the goal of Africa Climate Week is to provide encouragement to the implementation of countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement and climate action to deliver on the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
Germany has said that it will use all legal options to end the use of glyphosate-based weed-killers.
Environment Minister, Svenja Schulze, said on Tuesday, November 6, 2018 that the federal environment agency would announce new conditions for the approval of pesticides.
“If other, perhaps even more damaging, pesticides are used instead of glyphosate, the environment won’t be any better off.
“So, we will demand new nature conservation requirements for the approval process of every pesticide that harms biodiversity,” Schulze said.
Glyphosate-based herbicides are usually made of a glyphosate salt that is combined with other ingredients that are needed to stabilise the herbicide formula and allow penetration into plants.
It is used most heavily on corn, soy, and cotton crops that have been genetically-modified to be resistant to the herbicide.
Glyphosate and glyphosate-based herbicides have low acute toxicity in mammals.
They also have not been shown to pose a significant risk to human health during normal use, although human deaths have been reported from deliberate ingestion of concentrated RoundUp.
Some fishermen on Tuesday, November 6, 2018 lamented the disappearance of some species of fish in the Kangami Dam, River Kaduna.
The fishermen in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Kaduna said that they were generating huge revenue from species such as sardine, tilapia and others, many of which had disappeared from the river.
They said that the population of the available species were also reducing from what it used to be some years ago.
Mallam Musa Sani, a fisher at Kangimi Dam, said that many species of fish had gone extinct, while some others were almost disappearing gradually.
He said that, for the past 10 years, fishes such as sardines and tilapia had completely disappeared, adding, “We are forced to migrate from one river to another in search of other fishes for sale.”
Musa disclosed further that even frogs and crabs had all disappeared from the river.
Another fisherman, Paul Moses, said: “Today, it is difficult to see crocodiles along the banks of River Kaduna. Similarly, frogs, tadpoles, toads, crickets have virtually disappeared or have become extinct.”
He said that because fishermen were unable to make money from fishing, many of them gone into other vocations such as guarding houses and farming.
Dr Piman Hoffman, a Climatologist and Assistant Director, African Climate Reporters, attributed this development to indiscriminate dumping of chemicals, wastes and other adverse human activities to the extinction of marine animals.
According to him, humans have introduced significant number of chemicals into the environment which are very harmful to marine animals.
He said that while some chemicals were designed to get rid of weeds and pests, a significant amount of chemicals were wastes from industrial and agricultural processes.
Hoffman expressed sadness over the attitude of companies who dumped chemicals into water sources without recourse to the consequences.
He said that an anytime chemical waste was released, it effect went into the environment and polluted the water.
“As it rains, the chemicals are washed into rivers, which in turn feed the waterfalls and then go into the ocean.”
Hoffman said that climate change and human activities had caused the extinction of many aquatic life and many were still going due to continuous dumping of hazardous wastes harmful to living organisms in water.
“We dump everything in the oceans, including plastic bags and other plastic debris, garbage, and toxic chemicals, crude oil, sewage and nuclear wastes.
“We kill thousands of aquatic animals daily without knowing the consequences, hence, there is need to halt this ugly attitude.”
By Ezra Musa
The deadly Ebola virus has infected 300 people in Congo since an outbreak erupted almost two months ago in the country’s east, the health ministry said on Tuesday, November 6, 2018.
Ebola is a disease caused by a virus, though there are five strains, and four of them can make people sick.
After entering the body, it kills cells, making some of them explode, it wrecks the immune system, causes heavy bleeding inside the body, and damages almost every organ, though it is scary, but it’s also rare.
“The virus has killed 186 people in the North Kivu and Ituri regions, while 88 others have been cured,’’ the ministry said on Monday.
According to authorities, about 26,000 people in the central African nation have meanwhile received a vaccine to prevent Ebola.
Earlier this month, the health ministry said it will install health checkpoints at the entrances to all polling stations in Congo’s Ebola-affected region during the December presidential election, when millions of Congolese are expected to come out to vote.
The outbreak is concentrated in a region where numerous militia groups are fighting over Congo’s rich natural resources.
Besides militia attacks that have hindered health workers, the region’s high population density and movements across the borders to Uganda and Rwanda pose additional risks that the highly lethal fever disease could spread in the region.
The outbreak began shortly after the government declared an end to another outbreak in the west of the country in June and lauded those involved for managing to swiftly contain the spread of the disease.
A strategic report released by the Namibian Ministry of Health and Social Services on Tuesday, November 6, 2018 has revealed that the Southern African country is in a unique position to eliminate the local transmission of malaria.
According to the report, which was signed by the country’s Minister of Health and Social Services, Bernard Haufiku, Namibia is ahead of most southern African countries in malaria elimination.
The report, therefore, called for the consolidation of current efforts at combating the disease
“The Ministry of Health and Social Services with the support of partners, has implemented a strong malaria control programme.
“It steadily improved the coverage and quality of indoor residual spraying (IRS), introducing long lasting insecticide-treated nets and increasing access to rapid malaria diagnosis and new artemisinin-based combination treatment,’’ the report said.
The report came against the background of Namibia having implemented consistent corrective measures to combat malaria in marginalised communities since the year 2010.
Malaria is a serious and sometimes fatal disease caused by a parasite that infects a type of mosquito which feeds on humans.
Once an infected mosquito bites a human, the parasites multiply in the host’s liver before infecting and destroying their red blood cells.
People who get malaria are usually very sick with symptoms such as high fevers, shaking chills, and flu-like illness.
It is transmitted to humans through the bite of the Anopheles mosquito.
Globally, the World Health Organization estimates that in 2015, 212 million clinical cases of malaria occurred, and 429,000 people died of malaria, most of them children in Africa.
Considering that malaria causes so much illness and death, the disease is a great drain on many national economies.
Since many countries with malaria are already among the poorer nations, the disease maintains a vicious cycle of disease and poverty.
In collaboration with the Government of Egypt, the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will hold its 14th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP14) in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, from November 14 to 29, 2018, under the theme “Investing in Biodiversity for People and Planet.”
From November 14 to 15 at the High-Level Segment, some 80 ministers of Environment, Infrastructure, Energy, Industry and other sectors are expected to join in discussions on mainstreaming biodiversity into their respective fields of work.
Next come negotiations among 196 Parties to the CBD from November 17 to 29. Main themes include achieving the globally-agreed Aichi Biodiversity Targets (2010-2020); mainstreaming biodiversity issues; and the beginning of two years of negotiation of the post 2020 global framework for biodiversity, scheduled for final agreement at CBD COP15 in China in 2020.
According to the the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), Sunday, November 18 will feature the launch of a message “primer” detailing elements of the IPBES Global Assessment of Biodiversity, expected to be released in Paris in May 2019.
On Monday, November 19, there will be presentations by the Co-chairs of the four IPBES Regional Assessment Reports issued in March, 2018 (one each for the Americas, Europe and Central Asia, Africa, Asia and the Pacific) and the Global Assessment Report on Land Degradation and Restoration.
The Minister for Water Resources, Alhaji Suleiman Adamu, has directed a three-member committee in the National Water Resources Institute (NWRI) to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the devastation caused by flood in Jigawa State.
Alhaji Yusuf Sani, the Executive Secretary of Jigawa State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), stated this in a statement made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Dutse, the state capital, on Monday, November 5, 2018.
Sani said that the minister had mandated the team to go around the flood-ravaged communities in the state to ascertain the extent of damage caused by the disaster.
He said that the terms of reference for the committee include the identification of affected persons, property, infrastructure and farm lands.
He said that the committee was also expected to interview the victims to find out the cost of the property destroyed by the flood.
The SEMA boss said that the committee was to recommend solutions that could forestall a recurrence in future.
He said that the committee, which is headed by a senior staff member of the ministry, Mr Jersey Stephen, had one week to submit its report.
The latest Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion reveals a healing ozone layer, global warming reduction potential, and options for more ambitious climate action.
The quadrennial review from the Scientific Assessment Panel of the Montreal Protocol will be presented at the 30th Meeting of the Parties to the accord. Its findings confirm first and foremost that actions taken under the Montreal Protocol have led to long-term decreases in the atmospheric abundance of controlled ozone-depleting substances (ODSs) and the ongoing recovery of stratospheric ozone.
Evidence presented by the authors shows that the ozone layer in parts of the stratosphere has recovered at a rate of 1-3% per decade since 2000. At projected rates, Northern Hemisphere and mid-latitude ozone is scheduled to heal completely by the 2030s followed by the Southern Hemisphere in the 2050s and polar regions by 2060. The ozone layer protects life on Earth from harmful levels of ultraviolet rays from the sun.
It is further evidence of the inspiring success of this environmental treaty now entering its fourth decade. The report also offers a view of the role the Protocol must have in decades to come.
“The Montreal Protocol is one of the most successful multilateral agreements in history for a reason,” said Erik Solheim, head of UN Environment. “The careful mix of authoritative science and collaborative action that has defined the Protocol for more than 30 years and was set to heal our ozone layer is precisely why the Kigali Amendment holds such promise for climate action in future.”
Set to enter in to force on 1 January 2019, the Kigali Amendment calls for slashing the future use of powerful climate-warming gases in refrigerators, air conditioners and related products. Nations that ratify the Kigali Amendment are committing to cutting the projected production and consumption of these gases, known as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), by more than 80 percent. So far, 58 parties have done so.
Authors of the Assessment found the world can avoid up to 0.4°C of global warming this century through implementation of the Kigali Amendment, affirming its critical role in keeping global temperature rise below the 2°C mark.
“These new assessment results highlight the importance of continued long-term monitoring of HFCs in the atmosphere as the Kigali Amendment begins to take hold,” said David Fahey, Co-Chair of the Montreal Protocol Scientific Assessment Panel and scientist at the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory in the US.
Full compliance would reduce future global warming due to HFCs by about 50% between now and 2050 compared to a scenario without any HFC controls.
The findings come at a time when the world is still grappling with a sobering message from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which found just 12 years remain to limit global warming to 1.5°C, beyond which, the impacts of a further rise in global temperatures will begin to have an increasingly extreme impact on human society and ecosystems. The IPCC report offered the clearest evidence to date of the drastic difference between the 1.5°C and 2°C scenarios.
“Carbon dioxide emissions remain by far the most important greenhouse gases which are driving global warming. But we can also help tackle climate change by reducing our commitment to other gases including HFCs. Every bit of warming matters,” said World Meteorological Organisation Secretary-General, Petteri Taalas.
The Assessment, which is intended to add to the scientific basis for decisions made by the Parties to the Montreal Protocol, also presents updated scenarios for hastening ozone recovery through:
