Climate Watch: FG to plant economic trees in desert-prone communities

Despite directly impacting our communities, health and livelihood, climate-related reports usually take a back seat to dominant news beats like politics and business. Climate Watch aims to ensure you never miss important stories on climate change and actions being taken towards limiting its impact.

Here is a round-up of last week’s climate stories: 

• Nigeria is not only seen as a country that exerts high pressure on its wildlife but is also known to be a major transit route for wildlife traffickers. In the light of this, Sharon Ikeazor, minister of state for environment, said Nigeria will soon launch a national strategy plan that will enable it to combat illegal wildlife crime in the country. She said the strategic plan set to be launched on March 3, will help facilitate the implementation of policies aimed at protecting, restoring and promoting sustainable biodiversity use. Find out more here.

• As part of the developments to address biodiversity loss, Ikeazor said Nigeria will soon sign a pact with Cameroon on ecosystem conservation and sustainable management of forestry and wildlife resources. She said this is due to the alarming rate of overexploitation of natural resources in the country. She added that Nigeria’s biodiversity plays a vital role in its economy, but environmental challenges like pollution, invasive alien species and climate change are threatening it. Read more on this here

• In another development, Sharon Ikeazor, minister of state for environment, said climate change poses a “serious threat” to Nigeria’s efforts to eradicate poverty. She said the World Climate Change Vulnerability Index classifies Nigeria as one of the 10 most vulnerable countries in the world. She listed some of the federal government’s efforts on addressing climate change, adding that more measures are being taken to help citizens adapt. Read more here.

• To address these issues posed by climate change, Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo said African countries need greater collaboration. He said the continent needs to prepare itself more for intra-African collaboration to prompt response to climate change and the zero-emissions targets. He said Africa needs more energy than the renewable sources can immediately provide and so needs to adopt gas as a transition fuel.

• As a way of supporting disaster early warning, preparedness, mitigation and academic research, Mustapha Habib, director general of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), said the agency inaugurated the automatic weather observation station installed at Nasarawa State University, Keffi. He said the project was as a result of a request from the Nigerian Hydrological Services Agency (NIHSA) for partnership with NEMA towards improving its data acquisition for monitoring of hydro-meteorological phenomenon (weather forecasting) in the country. 

• As desertification and land degradation ravages some parts of the country, Sharon Ikeazor, minister of state for environment, said the National Agency for Great Green Wall (NAGGW) will invest more on planting economic trees to benefit desert prone communities. She said the federal government has adopted this measure to reduce greenhouse emission as well as fight desertification, control climate change and provide sustainable livelihood to people in the region.