By Chuks Oyema-Aziken (Baku, Azerbaijan)
The Nigerian government on Tuesday called for more funding to bridge the gap in climate finance across Africa.
Minister of Environment, Balarabe Abbas Lawal made the call at the High level Ministerial Dialogue on Scaling up Climate Adaptation Finance at the ongoing COP29 in Baku Azerbaijan.
The Minister represented by Mrs Halima Bawa Bwari said climate impacts such as flooding has been dealing heavy blows through devasting floods from diminishing coasts to the fringes of the Sahara.
“This heightens security challenges, food insecurity, loss of ecosystems and livelihoods,” he said.
“We have developed an Adaptation Investment Compact even as we finalise our NAPs. But where will the funding come from considering the 3% of climate finance mobilized globally?.
“At the current trajectory, the continent experiences a climate finance gap of up to $1288.2 billion annually from 2020 to 2030.
He recommended actions needed to close adaptation finance gap to include providing and scaling up adaptation financing through concessional climate funds and trade policies should be more integrated with global climate action.
“We agree that international financing should be more of grants as several of our economies are drowning in debts yet we still have to cope with the negative impacts of climate change.
“If we insist on public financing to then there is a need to seriously consider debt forgiveness and debt swap instruments. Global financing processes should have ease of access and impact oriented.”
