Two UN agencies, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and UN Environment, have commended Nigeria’s efforts at adopting global solutions towards creating a safe, secured and sustainable environment. They, however, urged government to put in more efforts, given the enormity of environmental problems and attendant consequences facing different parts of the country.

Speaking at different side events during the ongoing 6th Assembly of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) in Vietnam, the organisations specifically called on Nigerian government to speedily clean up the Niger Delta region of oil spills as well as restore the vegetation of the desert-prone northern region, believing that those efforts would accelerate economic opportunities in the two regions, thus enabling lasting peace.

The side events came shortly after a plenary of the GEF Assembly, on Wednesday, June 27, 2018 chaired by the Natural Resources and Environment Minister of Vietnam, Tran Hong Ha , during which heads of delegations agreed on the urgency of governments across the globe to unite and scale up funding, innovations and ideas to save a deteriorating planet.

Briefing journalists, the UNDP Administrator, Mr. Achim Steiner, who stressed the need for different governments to work more strategically and ambitiously in creating economies that are ecologically healthy, submitted that many countries in Africa, particularly Nigeria, were making great efforts to entrench green economy, even though there were still lots of work to be done.

“Having spent 10 years living in Nairobi, Kenya and heading one of your programmes in Africa, I have never had any reason to complain about leadership from Africa.

“For there is green economy, for there is biodiversity population Africa has already invested. There is a great deal of leadership coming. There is also a great deal of transformation happening on the environment of natural resources of wildlife across the continent.

“I think our greatest focus right now is how to engage government and the economic players on the African continent to allow that transition towards green economy and sustainable economy to form African development planning,” said Steiner, while answering questions on the level of cooperation needed from African countries.

Steiner went ahead to list some commendable efforts by the government of Nigeria to include the launching the first green bond in Africa and investing massively in renewable energy.

He, however, expressed displeasure over the inability of the government to conclude the clean-up of Ogoniland, saying the Nigerian government should also extend its good leadership to the important project by collaborating with oil companies to put in place the remedial action necessary to restore what he described as one of the greatest catastrophes on the environment.

His worlds: “I think in Nigeria we have seen the first green bond on the continent being raised. A couple of years ago, I think we have seen enormous investment in renewable energy and we have also seen a significant amount of financial leveraging green environment into the treasuries and into the financial institutions.

“The other aspect has to do with some of the painful abuses of nature. Nigeria as you know has been struggling to clean up the oil spill in the Niger Delta and it continues to be my deepest hope that the commitment of the government and the oil companies will finally put in place the remedial action necessary to restore one of the greatest catastrophes on the environment on the continent in the near future. As has been tested, I think we have seen good development. So I hope this is another example of a government of the African continent taking leadership role in also addressing that problem in the development legacy”.

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, on behalf of President Muhammadu Buhari, on August 7, 2017 set in motion a $1 billion clean-up and restoration programme of the Ogoniland region in the Niger Delta, the implementation of which was based on the recommendations from a 2011 UN Environment report, commissioned by the Nigerian government, on the impact of oil extraction in Ogoniland.

The report found severe and widespread contamination of soil and ground water across Ogoniland, which is severely threatening public health.

The UNDP Administrator further observed that, without putting in place practical measures to achieve sound environmental remediation, all efforts my governments in the country to develop the tourism industry would continue to be futile, because tourists would naturally not like to come to regions where the environment is filthy.

“If you look at African story, without the environment, without nature without conserving it, that tourism will never be achieved,” he concluded.

Also addressing journalists during another side event, Executive Director of UN Environment, Mr. Erik Solheim, sounded it loud and clear that until the desert-prone northern Nigeria is made economically sustainable for residents through restoration of lands degraded by desert encroachment, no meaningful progress would be achieved in ending restiveness in the region.

Solheim also advised on the need to harnessed the huge opportunity in solar energy to ensure adequate and sustainable power to drive small scale businesses in the region that create wealth for the people, thereby reducing occasions that lead to violence.

He shed light on the strong desire of the Assembly to see transformative changes in the quest to restore the environment to support human lives.

Some of the transformative changes that Solheim said the world should expect include the massive use of bicycles and electric cars which produce no destructive emissions.

Another is the total ban of smoking at UN conference areas and hotels, which he observed was achieved in Da Nang City, venue of the 6th GEF Assembly.

Solheim said the change would be achieved under four broad categories of action, namely: tackling the menace of plastic, safety mobility, efficient energy and effective agricultural practices, where chemicals that are injurious to the environment are phased out while adopting organic substitutes.

By Innocent Onoh in Da Nang City, Vietnam

Vice Chancellor of the University of Port Harcourt, Professor Ndowa Lale, will deliver the 9th Public Lecture and Environmental Awards ceremony of the Environmental Outreach Magazine scheduled for the 3rd of July 3, 2018 in Owerri, Imo State.

The Lecture with the theme: “Climate change and gully erosion in Nigeria: Problems and prospects” will be chaired by Professor A. Chidi Ibe, a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Science and former Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council of the Imo State University, Owerri.

According to a statement by the Chairman of the Organising Committee, Mr. Martins Mbagwu, Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State is the Special Guest of Honour while the Publisher of the Magazine, Chief Noble Akenge, is Host of the event.

Their Majesties, King Alfred Diete-Spiff, Amanyanabo of Twon-Brass and Chairman, Bayelsa State Council of Traditional Rulers and Eze Imo, Eze Samuel Agunwa Ohiri, the Obi of Obi-Orodo and Chairman of the Imo State Council of Traditional Rulers are Royal Fathers of the Day.

The National President of Nigerian Environmental Society, Prof. Lawrence Ezemonye, and the Pro-Chancellor/Chairman of Council of the Niger Delta University, Professor Steve Azaiki, will deliver goodwill messages at the event.

There will also be a special presentation on the activities of the Nigerian Erosion and Watershed Management Project (NEWMAP) by the National Coordinator, Mallam Salisu Dahiru.

Like in the previous Lectures, the event will be attended by environmentalists from around the country, the Organised Private Sector, top government functionaries, traditional rulers, Civil Society Organisations, school children and members of the public.

Some corporate obdies and individuals who have distinguished themselves in the field of Environment and Development in Nigeria will also be honoured with various categories of Environmental Awards.

An emerging body of research on the non-carbon impacts of deforestation reveals that destroying tropical forests significantly alters the Earth’s delicate energy balance, rainfall, and wind systems, leading to warmer and drier conditions near cleared forests and out-of-whack weather patterns across the globe, according to a new report by leading forest experts released at a major global forest gathering on Wednesday, June 27, 2018.

The research suggests these “new” impacts of deforestation, rooted in the flow of solar energy through forests across the upper atmosphere, disruptions to the atmosphere’s chemical cocktail, and dramatic declines in water cycling are just as damaging to the climate as the carbon released into the atmosphere when trees are cut down.

“We’ve known for a long time that chopping down tropical forests spews dangerous amounts of carbon into the atmosphere,” said Nancy Harris, Research Manager of the Forests programme at the World Resources Institute and working paper co-author. “Now we are learning that removing trees from the earth’s surface also throws off the energy, water and chemical balances that make it possible for us to grow food and live our lives in predictable and productive ways. If we continue to cut down trees, we’ll have to rewrite what we know about the weather – and we can forget about global goals to keep temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius.”

The working paper, “Tropical Forests and Climate Change: The Latest Science,” is one of nine studies released on Wednesday at the opening of the two-day Oslo Tropical Forest Forum, an event hosted by the Norwegian government to celebrate results and identify remaining challenges 10 years after reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) was included in the climate change negotiations, and to advance strategies for mobilising forests to help achieve the ambitions of the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The working paper synthesises findings from a slew of recent studies that, when they come together, conclude that large-scale forest loss in any of the three major tropical forest zones – Latin America, Southeast Asia and Central Africa – would lead to a rise in local temperatures, and disruptions to the water cycle locally and half a world away. These studies use sophisticated modelling to determine the physical, chemical and reflective impacts of removing forests from the surface of the earth enmasse, and satellites to measure the changes that have already happened. “When you add up these impacts of forest loss, one thing is clear: people living closest to deforested areas face a hotter, drier reality,” said Harris. “These changes won’t hit Brazilians, Indonesians, or Congolese sometime in the future – they are hitting them now, and they’ll only get worse as more forests disappear.”

Areas in the tropics that experienced deforestation in the last decade have seen significant and long-lasting increases in local air surface temperatures. “Observed local temperature impacts of deforestation are in one direction: hotter,” said Michael Wolosin, Forest Climate Analytics’ President and working paper co-author. “Daily average temperatures went up by a degree and maximum temperatures by 2 degrees C, in just a decade. Over the same period, the global carbon and GHG impact was less than one fifth as much – 0.2 degrees C. Deforestation is wreaking havoc on local climates across the tropics.”

The Amazon region of South America, home of the world’s largest rainforest, would feel the most heat and drought from forest loss. Complete deforestation would lead to regional warming of about two degrees Celsius and a roughly 15 percent drop in annual rainfall. Researchers have already linked the 2015 drought that hit Brazil, impacting people, crops and industry, to forest loss in the Amazon.

“In its focus on ending greenhouse gas emissions, the Paris Agreement only takes the first step in addressing the drastic consequences of deforestation on the climate,” said Wolosin. “If global and national policymakers fail to come up with an action plan for staving off the immediate and debilitating impact of deforestation on local and global weather patterns, they could put the lives of millions in peril. The question is, what’s more important – the short-term income generated from fields after fields of soy or palm oil, or a stable, predictable weather patterns for generations to come?”

Tropical forests drive the global movement of air, water, and heat in diverse ways, leading to profound impacts on the climate. Through the process of evapotranspiration, trees pump water from their roots through their leaves as water vapour, humidifying the air and causing surface cooling. Because forests have more leaf surface area and deeper roots than grasslands or croplands, they cycle more water. The water pumped through a single tree can cause local surface cooling equivalent to 70 kWh for every 100 litres, enough energy to power two household central air-conditioners per day. Removing these trees can lead to local flooding, soil erosion and droughts.

Impacts from these tropical forest cover changes on water and heat cycling extend well beyond the tropical regions themselves through “teleconnections”, associated with the mass movement of air and conditions in the upper atmosphere. An increase in temperature in the tropics due to deforestation generates large upward-moving air masses. When these hit the upper atmosphere they cause ripples, or teleconnections, that flow outward in various directions, similar to the way an underwater earthquake can create a tsunami.

According to one landmark study about this phenomenon, complete deforestation could put the climate in some of the world’s most important agriculture regions off kilter. These variations in rainfall and spikes in temperature could occur across the world. For example, complete deforestation of the Amazon Basin would likely reduce rainfall in the US Midwest, Northwest and parts of the south during the agricultural season. The complete deforestation of Central Africa would likely cause declines in rainfall in the Gulf of Mexico and parts of the US Midwest and Northwest and increase it on the Arabian Peninsula. There could also be precipitation declines in Ukraine and Southern Europe.

“Halting deforestation, allowing damaged forests to grow back, and keeping undisturbed forests intact, are necessary to ensure the stability of the climate,” said Frances Seymour, Program Chair of the Oslo Tropical Forests Forum and lead author of “Why Forests? Why Now?” “Fortunately, we know a lot about ways to stop deforestation, but developing countries can’t do this alone. Donor countries should ramp up funding of efforts by tropical forest nations to halt deforestation, and address the global consumption, trade and investment patterns that drive forest loss.”