By Chuks Oyema-Aziken, Glasgow
The Federal Government on Monday said it is tackling climate change collectively with the other tiers of Government.
The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Environment, Engr. Hassan Musa disclosed this at a session of the ongoing COP26 in Glasgow Scotland.
The session at the UNFCCC COP26 Blue Zone, Lomond Auditorium had as theme “Building forward better: A blueprint and tools to meet global goals for climate, nature, and people” was organised by BirdLife International and University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership.
According to Engr. Musa, “The states are working and coming and partnering with us like NEWMAP. NEWMAP has over 23 states already enjoying some of the benefits, by contributions they are getting from the World Bank and fixing some of their challenges like erosions, degradation and deforestation.
“As you can see you cannot walk alone, the country has federal, state and local governments. All this issue of cutting of trees, firewood, is in the local governments in the state. So we have to work together. So that is why we have been talking together so that we can move this country and have a better future for our next generations
“We are also looking at international partners to assist us like our minister has said, this is not just we alone, we have to work collectively with partners under our local governments, states and international.
He said that the presence of President Muhammadu Buhari at COP26 signifies the level of commitment the government has shown towards tackling Climate Change.
“It has shown how Nigeria is really planning today, tomorrow and for the future and so far we have taken the lead, in African and in most part of the world, that nature, climate is important for everybody.
“Some of the achievements are the great green wall where we are planting massively, millions of trees which will improve and reduce deforestation and desertification.
“We are also trying to get training, we had a lot of discussions with the minister of state for education, the minister of environment is doing something for the ministry of environment, they are going to engage the ministry of education, we are also going to engage the state in seeing how to improve the environment.
“Just two weeks ago we had the national council on environment where all the state commissioners, permanent secretaries of the 36 states with the FCT came together to look at the challenges within the one year.
“And we have seen what we have done and we also have a communiqué and we have a big action plan as being chaired by the honourable minister of Barr. Sharon Ikeazor.
He said the Government is hopeful that the discussions with developed countries and international partners will translate into more positive actions.
“So far there are promises, we have the joint declaration. What we are telling them is that it is not just enough you make promises; we want to see an action, time lie and releases so that we can mitigate and we can adapt to our new challenges.”
