Hon. Sam Onuigbo, member representing Ikwuano/Umuahia North/Umuahia Federal Constituency for Abia, sponsored the Climate Change bill recently signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari. He is vocal on the need for policies to tackle Climate Change.
The post COP26 analysis
In terms of what we saw during the COP26, we saw a whole lot. The world is moving, our President made a declaration, he made a commitment which is supposed to serve as a guide and that is also in line with the content of the bill which I sponsored. He later assented to as an act of the national assembly to the effect that we are working to it, net zero by 2060, that is a major announcement, there is no doubt about that. Then the President also participated in a number of sessions including the one where they talked about adaptation, where people were beginning to donate money and of course we are going to find that extremely useful as he has become the President of the Great Green world which is a continental body. So these things are falling in place. And then he has assented to the climate change act.But also add to that, the fact that a number of countries about 20 or so, including the US, Canada and so many other countries who are bias of Nigerian oil and gas, when they get together and they were talking about defunding these projects, that is clearly a source of worry to those of us who are following events because there is no doubt that is going to put pressure on us.I was also lucky to participate in the climate finance session that was chaired by Mark Carney, the Canadian who was the former Central Bank Governor of the United Kingdom where he talked of the efforts by the private sector, mobilizing of resources.Before they came to COP, they were thinking about maybe 70 billion and all that but before the COP ended, at least on that day when he spoke, they have seen the situation where the private sector is able, projecting to be able to raise over 130 billion dollars to contribute towards tackling the challenges of climate change. So a whole lot happened from different angles.
And for us as a nation, it is a wakeup call that as a fossil fuel dependent economy, we need to work hard, we need to move along, we do not need to continue to gaze whether this is truly going to happen or not. So these for me were the takeaways from COP26 which is get ready, countries are transiting, some have attained 44% through renewable energy, some have attained 22% renewable energy and so many other ones and some of these are major companies, some are even oil producing like the Great Britain and some other ones are not.
The Germans I understand has attained over 22% of their energy mix through renewable, so that means a whole lot for us. So for us in Nigeria and for us in Africa, we need to buckle up, we need to know that the devastating effects of climate change that they are real and they are with us, considering the challenge from the Sahel which has pushed down to the rest; at least today as we speak about 11 states in Nigeria are directly impacted by the Sahel challenge and that has stretched down to Lake Chad where we have lost almost the entire water body there. It used to be about 25,000square miles but it has shrunk to about 2,500 and of course what is the result, the result is that all those millions of people from Chad, Niger, Cameroon who previously depended on that lake for means of livelihood whether farming or fishing or animal husbandry they are roaming around.
So that leaves us to agree that climate change has a relationship with the insecurity in the north east of Nigeria?
It has never been in doubt. Let me tell you, climate change clearly has serious security implications and that is why the United Nations as far back June 3rd 2009 passed a resolution 63/281 alerting everyone to be aware that climate change has security implications and they have not stopped, they have been following on that going forward.So your observations is not wrong and that is what we are saying, you have millions of people who have ordinary skills of fishing, farming, animal husbandry, they are not communication consultants like you neither are they accountants, nor are they lawyers nor lecturers nor medical doctors, nor nurses that could easily pack their bags and travel to Saudi Arabia or United States of America. So they must find a way to live and that is why a lot of them were available to be recruited to cause trouble just for survival.Then you talk about the associated challenge of forced migration arising from that side that we have talked about and pushing down now and helping to cause part of the problems that we are experiencing. So for us we have to wake up to this and see how we can address the challenges. But we are also to wake up to know that look the world is transiting and that unless we transmit speedily along with the world that is weaning themselves from oil and gas and all that, we run a huge risk of being left, one, behind and two, with serious critical assets being stranded. So that is the take away I have from the last COP.
