House to Conclude Legal Framework on Climate Change

By Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja
The House of Representatives has revealed that it was presently concluding a legal framework on climate change action which would serve as guide  as the country strives to reduce carbon emissions by 30% by 2030.
It however lamented that there were discordant tunes among the implementing agencies which it said might jeopardise the attainment of reducing greenhouse emissions by 2030.

The Chairman, House Committee on Climate Change, Hon. Sam Onuigbo disclosed this in Abuja at the Climate Change Knowledge Immersion and Workshop- Parliamentarians, organised by World Bank Group in collaboration with the Ministry  of Environment.
He said government was doing enough to tackle the issue of climate change according to the resources available to it but  stressed that there was need for awareness, deepening and broadening  of the knowledge and creating consciousness for people to know what the dangers were.

Onuigbo stated: “We are right now concluding work on a legal framework on climate change for Nigeria. As soon as that is done we will also like to share the content with our people during public hearing. In a few months we will be done with our own part of the business (bill) and we leave the rest to the executive. It is going to be introduced to the parliament in a month time.
“The essence of the legal framework is to ensure that there is a law on climate change issues- mitigation, adaptation; whatever you have to do that there is a legal framework, a law that you are looking at, that guides you, whether you are a practitioner or whatever so that you know what to do.
“Right now we do not have any and I know that the leadership of the National Assembly beginning from the Senate President to the Speaker of the House and indeed members of the committee, we are all on the same page on this, it is coming and it is not going to take long and it is very important.

“It is important for us to know that if we can address the challenges that we have  in climate change, the drying up of Lake Chad and drought and desertification from the north is largely responsible for the herdsmen who are pushing down south and confronting farmers.
“When the place was green and they had grazing areas there was no trouble, but as the climate is changing rapidly and affecting, people are pushing south‎, it’s a serious security problem and that is why we need to come to agreement on this and we need a law to guide those who are practitioners in this business,”‎ he added.
On his part, the Chairman, House Committee on Environment,  Hon. Obinna Chidoka‎ lamented that there were discordant tunes between the implementing agencies in Nigeria.

‎According to him, “you cannot want to reduce carbon emissions and talk about the habitable environment ‎and then Ministry of Power for example or some agencies are considering increasing our coal mining for power, there could be different argument to that ,  there are different things that people will do to make sure each ministry doesn’t speak the same language
“So, when we are speaking different languages, different policies ‎, different ideas, it means that we are not working as a set piece. Every implementing agencies, the parliament, everybody must be going towards the same direction,” Chidoka noted.

‎In his presentation,  the Practice Manager, Environment and Natural Resources, World Bank, Mr. Benoit Bosquet said  there was increasing clouds of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, adding that 2016 was the warmest year on record, since 650,000 years.
He said there were many problems contributing to the drying up of Lake Chad, including rising population, increased irrigation activities, stressing that unless Lake Chad was developed, it might be difficult to restore North-east.

Bosquet also revealed that the world needed to invest an additional $5 trillion per year to tackle climate change, while Nigeria needed to invest $140 billion by 2030.