Nigeria’s new Environment Minister, Mrs Amina Mohammed, is leading the country’s delegation at the ongoing 21st Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Paris, France.
A former Special Advisor on Sustainable Development to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Mrs Mohammed appears to be doing a pretty good job coordinating the nation’s activities at the global summit, where delegates – and the entire world – are looking forward to a favourable outcome that will address the worrisome climate issue.
Apart from being actively involved in the current negotiations involving ministers, she made a presentation on Tuesday (December 8, 2015) at the High Level Segment of the COP. She has also attended numerous meetings, side events and sessions where, for example, Nigeria committed to reducing SLCP emissions in the Oil and Gas sector as well as join the Initiative on Zero Routine Flaring by 2030.
Consequently, commendations have begun to come her way.
Nigeria’s former climate chief, Dr Victor Fodeke, submitted: “A new dawn has set in for the country. We have now in Nigeria what looks like the most acclaimed Minister of Environment leading the continent in the climate change and sustainable development process. During our just concluded morning meeting of African Group of Negotiators some hours ago, our Honourable Minister of Environment, leading the WORKSTREAM 2 in the COP21 negotiation process, was given a very loud ovation as the best in Africa for Africa.
“You will be proud to raise your head as a Nigerian henceforth, because a dynamic team of Climate change THINKTANK are in place and offering technical support, coordinated by the leadership of the Department of Climate Change in the Federal Ministry of Environment.. Nigeria the sleeping giant is now wide awake. We covet your prayers. Long Live Nigeria, Long Live Africa.”
EnviroNews presents a couple of visuals of the minister at work in Paris.
Environment Minister, Mrs Amina J. MohammedEnvironment Minister, Mrs Amina J. Mohammed, delivering a speech at the High Level Segment of the COPEnvironment Minister, Mrs Amina Mihammed, with President Muhammadu Buhari at COP21 in Paris, FranceMrs Mohammed with Dr Akinwumi Adesina of the African Development Bank and another delegateMrs Mohammed stressing a point during a sessionMrs Amina Mohammed
The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN), on Tuesday (December 8, 2015) in Abuja unveiled his short term plans to address housing deficits, provide good roads and urgently increase power generation in the country with extra 2,000 megawatts.
Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN)
Fashola said during his maiden press briefing in the Federal Capital City (FCT) that the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway which has been under construction and the Second Niger Bridge are of great importance to the current administration. According to him, both controversial projects would thus get urgent attention.
Fashola, former Governor of Lagos State, disclosed that work would soon commence on all roads that link the 36 states of the federation, adding that major roads which had been suspended due to paucity of funds and are vital to boost social economic activities in the country would be quickly revisited.
He spoke on plans to partner with the private sector and fully privatise the power sector in order for the country to witness genuine development like the telecommunication.
Part of his plans is also to immediately restore the jobs of construction workers who were laid off by local and international construction companies in the country.
His words: “The records that have been made available from previous budgets show that the last time Nigeria budgeted over N200 billion in a year’s budget for roads was in 2002. It seems that as our income from oil prices increased over the last decade, our spending on roads decreased.
“As far as status reports go, the federal government budgeted N18.132 billion in 2015 and the Ministry of Works got N13 billion for all roads and highways in 2015, although it has contracts for 206 roads, covering over 6,000km with contract price of over N2 trillion.”
However, Fashola stated that government’s ability to achieve connectivity of Inter-state roads would largely depend on capital spending in the 2016 budget.
He said it became imperative to pay contractors and get them back to work as soon as possible.
“Our short term strategy will be to start with roads that have made some progress and can be quickly completed to facilitate connectivity. We will prioritise within this strategy by choosing first the roads that connect states together and from that grouping start with those that bear the heaviest traffic.
“As at May 2015, many contractors have stopped work because of payment, and many fathers and wives employed by them have been laid off as a result.
“Some of the numbers from only four companies that were sampled suggest that at least 5,150 workers have been laid off as at March 11, 2015; and if we realise that there are at least 200 contracts pending, on the basis of one company per contract,” he said.
Analysing the unfortunate situation, Fashola explained, “If each contractor has only 100 employees at each of the 200 contract sites, it means at least that 20,000 people who lost their jobs can return to work if the right budget is put in place and funded for contractors to get paid.
“The possibility to return those who have just lost their jobs back to work is the kind of change that we expect to see by this short term strategy.
“In order to make the roads safer, we intend to re-claim the full width and set back of all federal roads, representing 16% and about 36,000km of Nigeria’s road network by immediately now asking all those who are infringing on our highways, whether by parking, trading, or erection of any inappropriate structure to immediately remove, relocate or dismantle such things voluntarily. This will be the biggest contribution that citizens can offer our country as proof that we all want things to change for the better,” Fashola added.
Nigeria’s Environment Minister, Mrs Amina J. Mohammed, on Tuesday (December 8, 2015) at a High Level Segment of the ongoing UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris said that the nation is committed to an economic transformation, which places inclusive green growth at its heart. Mohammed, who is head of the country’s delegation at the COP, emphasised that the transformation is reflected in the recently submitted Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC)
Environment Minister, Mrs Amina J. Mohammed
The political momentum generated by the recent universal adoption of the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development by the United Nations General Assembly in New York provides the appropriate context for engagement at this Conference of Parties. The Paris outcome must result in a legally binding Agreement that ensures a sustainable future for our people and planet.
Nigeria is committed to an economic transformation, which places inclusive green growth at its heart. This transformation is reflected in my country’s ambitious INDC.We have announced our plans to reduce emissions by 20% below BAU by 2030, rising to 45% with the support of the international community. These are actions we can and are determined to take to support our common interest in addressing the global climate challenge. Our renewed urgency comes from recognition of the grave social, economic and environmental threats that climate change poses to our country. Climate change impacts are already threatening the livelihoods of our people. The devastating floods the country suffered in 2012 displaced more than 2.1 million Nigerians are a stark reminder of our vulnerability.
Furthermore, we are acutely aware of how climate variability can aggravate social unrest and provide a breeding ground for conflict and mass migration. For example, Lake Chad in the North East of our country is today a mere 10% of its original size, having shrunk from 25,000 sq. km to barely 2,500 sq. km in 25 years and livelihoods have been lost thus exacerbating poverty.
Nigeria fully aligns itself with the principles of climate justice to achieve a human-centred approach towards safeguarding the rights of the most vulnerable and lifting the burdens and sharing the benefits of climate action. Women, children and youth must be integrated throughout this Agreement. Recognising women empowerment and rights will be key to success here in Paris. We must also recognise that sustainable transformations will be needed to protect human health and welfare for our populations.
Nigerians have high expectations of this Conference. Paris must give us an agreement that will equitably promote climate change mitigation, adaptation and resilience based on effective means of implementation through adequate financing, technology transfer and capacity development. Developed countries have a further responsibility of taking the lead in emission reductions, and also to fulfil obligations to provide finance, technology and capacity to developing countries in support of their own mitigation and adaptation obligations. It is our fervent hope that these implementation modalities will be explicitly enshrined in the Agreement.
But even though the current focus of INDCs is on the delivery of emissions reductions to 2030, we must not take our eyes off the longer-term goal – and the emissions pathway that this demands. Ultimately, there is a moral imperative to stabilise temperature increases at 1.5 degrees Celsius. The African Union Agenda 2063 shows how Africa is committed to contributing and delivering on this goal.
The onus is now on us, as political leaders, to seize this historic opportunity to deliver an ambitious Agreement. It is an opportunity that will define the physical and economic security of our children and their children. Nigeria has shown its willingness to be part of the solution.
I will end with a wise quote from Madiba that says “It always seems impossible until it is done”.
A new multi-million-dollar initiative to promote clean energy investment in developing countries was on Monday (December 7, 2015) announced at the COP21 climate talks in Paris, France.
Helen Clark, Administrator UNDP. Photo credit: twitter.com
The Global Environment Facility (GEF) will provide $2 million in initial funding to help kick-start the formation of the “Climate Aggregation Platform” (CAP) in 2016. The CAP is expected to leverage over $100 million in co-financing from different partners, including from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
The announcement was made by Naoko Ishii, GEF CEO and Chairperson, during Energy Day at COP21. The CAP aims to help build pipelines of standardised, low-carbon energy assets in developing countries and to develop low-cost sources of financing for these assets, tapping new and diverse investor bases.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), together with the Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI), will implement the CAP programme. The IDB will be a core partner in demonstration transactions.
The CAP will be structured around three core activities:
A global working group, to promote engagement and coordination amongst key finance and industry stakeholders.
Promoting the standardisation essential to aggregation.
In-country demonstrations and providing technical support for pilot transactions, to build pipelines and achieve scale.
Aggregation is important to allow developing country financial institutions, from banks to micro-finance lenders, to make the most of their limited balance sheets. The aggregation, or bundling together, of small loans and assets aims to create investment products that meet the large-scale needs of institutional investors including global pension funds and insurance funds. Effective financial aggregation holds out the promise of opening up new finance & investment channels, both domestic and between North and South.
The operational launch of the CAP will take place in Spring 2016 following further project planning and international stakeholder consultations.
Naoko Ishii, CEO GEF said: “We need to rapidly ratchet up financing support for clean energy in developing countries. I’m delighted to announce the launch of the Climate Aggregation Platform to help spur strategic and transformative investments and to accelerate energy efficiency.”
Helen Clark, Administrator UNDP, said: “Access to low-cost financing will be essential to the goal of bringing affordable, clean and reliable energy to the citizens of developing countries. I welcome the CAP and am hopeful that, in promoting financial aggregation, it can make a contribution to this important objective.”
Climate Bonds CEO Sean Kidney said: “The CAP is an initial step in addressing the myriad of structural, financial and economic barriers that currently hinder the rapid growth of small scale climate friendly projects. Bringing together the major stakeholders to progress the underlying issues around aggregation is a welcome development.”
Ask vulnerable countries to explicitly give up the right to raise issues of compensation and liability in future
US President Barack Obama, US Secretary of State John Kerry with UN officials – UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres, and other leaders in Paris
The US, EU and some other developed countries have demanded that poor and vulnerable countries commit at Paris that they shall never ask for compensation or hold rich nations liable for the inevitable loss and damage in coming years.
Business Standard accessed the proposal that the US put forth informally before other countries demanding that poor and vulnerable countries give up any future rights to demand compensation or create any form of legal liability upon developed countries.
The proposal reads, “The Parties recognise the importance of averting and minimizing loss and damage from climate change… The Parties commit to continued implementation of the Warsaw International Mechanism under the Convention, in accordance with decisions of the Conference of the Parties and on a cooperative basis that does not involve liability and compensation.”
The last phrase of the last sentence in this proposal sets the redline that US, EU and other developed countries in the Umbrella group, such as Norway have drawn for the developing countries, saying the issue of Loss and Damage would find way its way in to the core Paris agreement only if they agree to explicitly saying that compensation and liability issues would never be raised in future.
Loss and Damage refers to the fact that even after countries adapt and adjust to some bits of inevitable climate change, they would not be able to cope with the alterations to long-term environment and the increasing extreme weather events. These events and the changes in the environment would only get worse if developed countries do not take ambitious emission cuts and encourage developing countries to also do more by providing them finance and clean technologies.
After a huge and ugly fight between the US and developing countries, in 2013, at the climate summit held in Poland, all countries agreed to the principle of Loss and Damage and set up a preliminary formal structure under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to address it. This was called the Warsaw International Mechanism. The US along with the Umbrella group had fought tooth and nail against this and finally agreed to this relatively toothless institution. The compromise left the window open at that stage for discussions on compensation and liability issues at later years. A leaked US document at that time showed how it had briefed all its embassies across the world to oppose such an idea from the outset even before the meeting of countries at Warsaw began. This institution’s existence is likely to end 2020 when the new Paris agreement gets implemented. Unless, the 196 countries here can either give a mandate here to extend its life or create a new more robust mechanism.
But the US, the EU and members of the Umbrella group of developed countries have warned that they would permit the principle of Loss and Damage to exist in the Paris agreement only if the permanent exclusion of compensation and liability is explicitly put on record.
Multiple sources aware of the informal consultations between countries on the issue of Loss and Damage confirmed that both the US and the EU said they saw this as a red-line. In other words, a condition they would not budge from at any cost.
The informal discussions, which all engaged countries realise were very sensitive, have not even been captured in the penultimate draft that negotiators approved on Saturday. But, countries were told that when ministers meet US and EU demand would be put before them on their table behind closed door.
“Midway through the negotiations, the US is showing its true colours by proposing a specific exclusion of any future compensation for loss and damage. Such a move belies the US’ empty rhetoric of solidarity with vulnerable nations,” said Harjeet Singh, Climate Policy Manager at ActionAid International and an observer focused on this element of the climate negotiations.
“From their point of view, in the shape of Loss and Damage the developed countries see a tiger cub in the room and they want to break its teeth before it learns to hunt,” said a developing country negotiator.
“But, the only way such a notion of Loss and Damage could get passed at Paris is if some of the vulnerable small nations give up their position under pressure from the developed economies,” he added.
The push for Loss and Damage in the UN climate negotiations has come most vociferously from the small island countries but they too carry variations linked to their geopolitical and economic conditions as well as dependence on larger developed countries with which they close ties.
The first sign of this happening emerged with the environment minister for St Lucia – one of the small island states with which US President Barack Obama has had bilateral discussions, told the BBC, “I think we can come up with something that allays the fears of the EU and US where liability and compensation is concerned without us giving up any rights that we currently enjoy under existing international agreements,” Senator Fletcher said.
Another negotiator in Paris aware of the changing dynamics said, “The US President has met the Caribbean island countries and we are now hearing ambivalent arguments from some of these. You can see a divide emerging on this now among the most vulnerable countries.”
After the Obama meeting, Marshall Island’s President, Christopher J Loeak, in a press release had said, “As an island boy, (Obama) understands the unique challenges we face. The meeting was a chance to talk, at a very personal level, about how vulnerable we are to climate impacts and that we all need to work together.”
“The countries that are looking to compromise on this with the US, the question is what will they seek in the bargain? I would conjecture it would likely be a reference to keeping global temperature rise to 1.5 degree by the turn of the century and not 2 degree Celsius. It could be the face saving trade off, however notional,” the negotiator said.
The Presidency has assured Nigerians that President Muhammadu Buhari will not give his assent to the bill on anti-social media which is now being considered by the Senate of the Federal Republic. The bill is being sponsored by the Senate majority leader, Senator Uba Na’Allah.
Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu. Photo credit: nationalmirroronline.net
A statement by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, said that the President had nothing to do with the bill.
Garba Shehu said that President Buhari had sworn to defend the Constitution of Nigeria and would not lend his hand to anything that is inconsistent with the Constitution.
“The President won’t assent to any legislation that may be inconsistent with the constitution of Nigeria,” Mallam Shehu stated
According to him, the President is not averse to lawful regulation, so long as it is done within “the ambit of the constitution which he swore to uphold.”
“As a key component of democratic principles,” the Presidency acknowledged that people in democratic societies “are so emotionally attached to free speech that they would defend it with all their might.”
Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg on Monday (December 7, 2015) in Paris at the ongoing UN climate change conference (COP21) announced plans to scale up Norway’s commitments to the Green Climate Fund (GCF).
Norwegian Prime Minister, Erna Solberg. Photo credit: www.noorwegen.nl
Norway already pledged $258 million to the Fund last year as part of the initial resource mobilisation and has now promised to double that figure by 2020, provided that GCF can finance verified emissions reductions in deforestation and forest degradation.
Speaking at the Paris global climate summit, Prime Minister Solberg stressed the importance of climate finance and Norway’s support for the Fund.
“The Green Climate Fund is now ready for business. I am pleased to announce today that Norway will significantly increase its contributions. If the Fund secures verified emission reductions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries, we will double our contribution by 2020,” she stated.
Børge Brende, the Foreign Minister of Norway, also reinforced his country’s support for GCF.
He emphasised the role of the Fund in adaptation projects, stating, “The Green Climate Fund will reduce developing countries’ vulnerability to climate change. Investments in adaptation to climate change are investments in development.”
GCF opened its initial resource mobilisation in October 2014, rapidly reaching $10 billion equivalent by the end of the year.
The Fund remains open for contributions during its initial resource mobilisation period and accepts them on an ongoing basis.
Two ambitious initiatives to restore 100 million hectares of degraded and deforested land in Africa by 2030 were on Sunday (December 6, 2015) launched at the Global Landscape Forum, an event organised alongside the UNFCCC COP21 in Paris.
Dr. Vincent Biruta, Minister of Natural Resources in Rwanda. Photo credit: ubukungu.rw
The Forum created a platform for positioning landscapes in the new international agreements on climate and sustainable development.
The African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative – dubbed AFR100 – is a pan-African, country-led effort endorsed by the African Union with ten countries so far agreeing to commit at least 31.7 million hectares for the restoration.
The countries include the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi and Niger. Others are Rwanda, Togo and Uganda.
“Restoring our landscapes brings prosperity, security and opportunity,” said Dr. Vincent Biruta, Minister of Natural Resources in Rwanda. “With forest landscape restoration we’ve seen agricultural yields rise and farmers in our rural communities diversify their livelihoods and improve their well-being. Forest landscape restoration is not just an environmental strategy, it is an economic and social development strategy as well.”
AFR100 partners – including the AU’s NEPAD Agency, the World Resources Institute and the German Government – are earmarking more than $1billion in development finance and additional $540 million in private sector impact investment to support restoration activities.
“The scale of these new restoration commitments is unprecedented,” said Wanjira Mathai, Chair of the Green Belt Movement and daughter of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai. “I have seen restoration in communities both large and small across Africa, but the promise of a continent-wide movement is truly inspiring. Restoring landscapes will empower and enrich rural communities while providing downstream benefits to those in cities. Everybody wins.”
AFR100 recognises the benefits that forests and trees can provide in African landscapes: improved soil fertility and food security, greater availability and quality of water resources, reduced desertification, increased biodiversity, green jobs, economic growth, and increased capacity for climate change resilience and mitigation.
Commitments made through Initiative build on significant climate pledges made by many African countries to support a binding global climate agreement.
So far, 13 of the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) submitted by African countries include restoration, conservation of standing forests, or “climate-smart” agriculture.
The AFR100 will work alongside the African Resilient Landscapes Initiative (ARLI) which leverages previous experience from Africa-led partnerships such as TerrAfrica.
“The ARLI will mobilise African countries and partners to leverage sectorial interventions and collectively ensure the integrity, resilience, restoration and sustainable management of landscapes across regions,” said Dr. Ibrahim Assane Mayaki,CEO of NEPAD. “We need to scale up restoration across the whole continent – more than 700 million hectares of land in Africa have potential for restoration. AFR100 provides a platform to work together more effectively to accelerate the achievement of restoration successes to benefit tens of millions of people who are currently searching for ways to adapt to climate change and improve their well-being.”
The ARLI will be implemented through the African Landscapes Action Plan, a roadmap prepared by the African Union NEPAD and partners from the Landscapes for People, Food and Nature Initiative to advance landscape governance, research, and finance through priority actions that embrace all land actors and all sectors.
“Sustainably developing the drylands and conferring resilience to their inhabitants will require addressing a complex web of economic, social, political, and environmental vulnerabilities,” said Makhtar Diop, Vice President for Africa Region, World Bank Group. “Good adaptive responses have the potential to generate new and better opportunities for many people, cushion the losses for others, and smooth the transition for all. Implementation of these responses will require effective and visionary leadership at all levels.”
The ARLI and its supporting initiatives will contribute to improved soil fertility and food security, improve access to clean water, combat desertification, increase biodiversity and habitat, create green jobs, bolster economic growth and livelihood diversification, and increase the capacity for climate change resilience and adaptation.
Dr. Andrew Steer, President and CEO, World Resources Institute, describes restoration as Africa’s gift to the world.
“As the world forges a climate agreement in Paris, African countries— which bear the least historic responsibility for climate change– are showing leadership with ambitious pledges to restore land. These countries are well on their way to meet the goal of restoring 100 million hectares of land, which will help sequester carbon and bring economic benefits to low-income, rural communities. These African leaders are turning their words into action and making a real contribution to respond to the global threat of climate change,” he said.
The African continent has been asked to urgently turn around its current attitude in the realms of climate change diplomacy and quit playing the victim game.
Mrs Ngozi Okonji-Iweala. Photo credit: flickr.com
Mrs Ngozi Okonji-Iweala, member, Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, who made the submission on Monday (December 7, 2015) at the ongoing UN climate talks (COP21) in Paris, stated that, contrary to popular belief, Africa is the solution and not the victim.
She said: “We are not supposed to be going to the West to beg as victims. Rather, we should be telling them (the West) that the solution is in Africa. Our infrastructures are just developing and so we have the opportunity to build in a climate-friendly way and avoid the mistakes of the developed nations. So, we are actually the solution not the victim.”
Okonjo-Iweala, a former Minister of Finance in Nigeria, underlined the need for a low carbon growth in Africa while also putting a price on carbon, a major component of greenhouse gases that is attributed to climate change.
“Almost three quarters of infrastructure that Africa needs are yet to be in place, meaning that the power we need, as well as the roads and the railway lines and coaches, we can still get (these infrastructures) and have them in a way that is friendly to climate change, that lowers emission and puts us on a low carbon growth path,” she said.
She clamoured for private sector involvement in the process, adding: “We are looking at power. Look at renewables; we are not saying renewables should be everything because Africa should have a mix. We need to have a mix, we can still use gas to some extent, but we should increase the renewables. Our companies that are investing should look at off-grid solutions for our people before other people come into it because that is what always happens.”
She went on: “Instead of flaring, we can use gas, we can convert this gas for our use and I know government has the power to do that. Then there are ways that you build the roads and the railway that uses technology that are climate friendly, that is really what I mean by all that.”
She described the African Risk Capacity, an initiative of the African Union, as an insurance agency, in respect of which member countries pay an insurance premium.
Her words: “When you have weather event like drought or flood you join and pay a premium. This organisation has developed a module for three years with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and DFID. The module was developed using all the climate information over the years of all the countries; the module is now working.
“When an event is triggered in your country, whether it is climate related or a natural disaster, you pay the premium, and get this insurance money fast. When there is a drought, the United Nations will raise an appeal and we are very grateful to them but between the two months of waiting what do we see? The picture of African children with flies over their body and nothing being done.
“We said no, let us have this organisation so that when it happens you have about $9 million immediately, and move the people into places where they can be rehabilitated. This is what the African risk capacity does.”
Challenges related to rising temperature and farm labour, changing rainfall in a dominantly rainfed system as well as increased frequency of occurrence of extreme weather events have either been partly addressed or totally neglected in the Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) discourse.
This was the submission of Prof Chinedum Nwajiuba of the Imo State University, Owerri in a presentation at the sidelines of the ongoing 21st Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) holding in Paris, France.
Prof Nwajiuba, who is also of the Nigeria Environmental Study/Action Team (NEST) in Ibadan, Oyo State, listed the CSA Framework to include productivity, resilience and mitigation. According to him, climate change has today compounded old and new problems like low productivity, rapidly increasing population, ageing farming population, rapid urbanisation, reliance on human labour, and rainfed systems.
The CSA is defined as agricultural practices that sustainably increase productivity and system resilience while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. CSA, according to scientists, helps ensure that climate change adaptation and mitigation are directly incorporated into agricultural development planning and investment strategies. Indeed, CSA is being widely promoted as the future of African agriculture and as a viable answer to climate change.
However, under challenge of rising temperature and farm labour, the don believes that farm mechanisation should be adopted, with it (mechanisation) powered in a manner to minimise emissions.
“This will raise productivity, and may be considered simultaneously an adaptation and mitigation. Measure,” he stated, pointing out that successful experience with this may be out-scaled, supported by building the capacity of public and private extension services.
To address challenge of changing rainfall in a dominantly rainfed system, Prof Nwajiuba stressed that, in addition to breeding for drought resistance and shortening of growing seasons of crops and sturdiness of livestock, there is need to develop irrigation schemes suited to various locations and conditions.
“This will raise productivity, and may be considered an adaptation measure. This should be of interest to research, policy, and investment. This should be supported by building the capacity of public and private Extension services,” he declared.
On increased frequency of occurrence of extreme weather events, he emphasised that innovative early warning systems and information provisions are required.
He stressed that farmers’ insurance schemes should further be out-scaled based on experiences and lessons from places where that is already in practice. He added that this would raise productivity, and may be considered an adaptation measure.
Prof Nwajiuba identified slash and burn land management as major sources of farmers’ emissions, adding that they are practices farmers are reluctant to stop because recommended alternatives make additional labour demand.
Additionally, he listed successful CSA practices to include:
