| Nigeria May Lose 1.3 Trillion to Climate Change |
The Norwegian Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Kjell Lillerud, June 1,
2010 admonished Nigerian politicians to take the issue of climate change
very seriously, just as the Executive Director of the Africa Leadership
Forum Ota, Ogun State underscored the catastrophic effect of the phenomenon
on human and natural resources.
"The expected impact of the impending global warming is not lost on Nigeria.
The 800km long coast line, intensified desertification, erosion and flooding
disasters and general land degradation as well as other risky practices,
puts us in a vulnerable position with an estimated $9billion (about N1.36
trl) likely to be lost as a result of the catastrophe with about 80 percent
of the inhabitant of the Niger Delta likely to be displaced." Aderinwale
said.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of a 5-day training capacity building
workshop for Parliamentary Support staff of National and State Assemblies in
Nigeria, the Ambassador called for concerted efforts to mitigate the
challenges posed by climate change.
Ambassador Lillerud said there Nigerian politicians "need in-depth knowledge
of the climate change and how it affects various parts of Nigeria" as well
as how national policies are linked to international and global political
processes. He therefore called on parliamentarians to "think globally and
act locally", over the phenomenon that he acknowledged as global.
"Politicians have a crucial role to play in climate policy in order to find
effective and sustainable solution to some of the very difficult problems
and parliamentarians must make informed decisions", he added because"Nigeria is situated in an important part of the world where there are
immense challenges".
Aderinwale had stated that Africa is the most vulnerable continent in the
world, "though our contribution to the global greenhouse gas emission is the
least." He highlighted essence of the workshop as a response mechanism to
the evidently and fragmentary nature of the parliament in Nigeria and to
improve the capacity of their oversight and legislative functions.
Supported by the Norwegian Agency for Development and Cooperation (NORAD),
the workshops hopes to train 360 technically competent and professionally
committed senior legislative aides on key issues of Millennium development
Goals, Gender Mainstreaming and Budgeting, Extractive Industry Governance,
Public Financial management, Security and Safety and the Africa Peer Review
Mechanism within the next three years.
|
