Climate Change and Related Matters

By Okey Ikechukwu

Yesterday the National Defense College (NDC) stood still for AVM Iyamu (rtd). The topic of his informed presentation was “Climate Change: A Threat to Global Security. He moved from his topic of global security to bring out the impact of Climate Change on regional and national security all over the world. Then he pointed out that Nigeria needs creativity, audacity and fresh ideas to address the disruptions caused by Climate Change. He predicates this last submission on the fact that the climate options laid out in the nation’s Policy document cannot adequately address the immediate pain point of citizens.

The speaker drew from the studies by international organizations and advanced nations to show that Climate Change is the greatest threat multiplier to global security and stability. He pointed out the implications of the human displacements and migration in the Sahel; and how this will contribute to a decline in Foreign Direct Investment. His reason for this view is simple: these are some of the facts, and factors that contribute to border skirmishes, arms proliferation and armed conflicts.

There is need for nations committing funds to tackling carbon emission through the introduction of alternative energy sources other than fossil fuel, emphasizing the importance of the NATO strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. As he called on Nigeria’s National Disaster Management plan to take the next step to seriousness by considering flooding a grave National Security concern and working out mechanism for ensuring that there is punishment and convictions for whosoever willfully pollutes and/or degrades our environment. He also urged the National Assembly to make appropriate laws to prevent work avoidance by enforcing agencies.

And the Commandant of NDC was no less versed on Climate Change issues. His remarks, in fact, laid an indispensable foundation for the delivery of Iyamu. He touched on all the core issues of Climate Change, environmental sustainability and much more. Then, the clincher: The entire institution depends on, and uses, solar energy. That makes NDC an organization that others need to study in order to understand how it is possible to use renewable energy for everything. Here was a knowledgeable Commandant who not only has his wits about him, but lives out every utterance about sensitivity to the dangers of Climate Change, as well as the larger picture of global economics and politics surrounding it all.

Honorable Ukeje, being a politician and an “indigene” of the National Assembly, due to her many electoral victories that saw her returning several times as a legislator, took up the matter of global politics and the need for Africa not to carry on the way it is doing at the moment. She urged African states to be wary of the agreements and protocols they append their signatures to. “Those who have done, and who are still doing, more harm to the environment and who are therefore more responsible for Climate change than Africa, should just stop trying to hoodwink the rest of us”, she said

It was a harvest of great ideas, and also plausible solutions to some conceptual and attitudinal missteps by African nations that struggle to be seen to be up and about with “international best practices” when they simply do not belong to the league the banners of which they are attempting to fly.

All behind the scene, liaising with everyone and everything that made the event a success was Air Commodore Ayodele Famuyiwa. The man is efficiency, tact and close marking of every component of the event walking on two legs.

And the NDC event brought to mind a conversation on the dire implications of Climate Change for the planned Onitsha inland port, which was mentioned and discussed on this page under the title: “Onitsha Port and Other Matters”. The matter had come up at a private gathering. the issue then was that “the ‘port’ was formally commissioned by late Dr Alex Ekwueme, Vice President to late Alhaji Shehu Shagari, but it never really functioned in real terms”.

The article in question, back then, said: “What needs to be re-evaluated, perhaps, fully is its feasibility from the angle of security of goods and route; as well as its viability from the angle of the simple required maritime ecosystem. One major overlooked, and largely unacknowledged, problem is the probability of not ever really getting enough water for the primary business of a port. You need water for a river port and the Onitsha end of the river Niger does not have enough. Dredging is a good idea, but it will give you a bigger ditch and wipe out the means of livelihood of water dependent local economies”.

The above observation had created an uproar back then, with some people even hinting that the article in question was sponsored by enemies of Ndigbo. While admitting “The confirmed practice elsewhere, of “gating” and later discharging the water to secure enough depth, the challenges that come to mind regarding the proposed Onitsha River Port are: (1) How the river dams along the Niger, Benue and their many tributaries have reduced available water at Onitsha by over 68%; (2) Possibly unrealistic projections about the prospects of the project; (3) The credibility of some of the existing Environmental Impact Assessment (AIE) reports, especially against the background of Climate Change and other environmental factors; (4) Direct politicization of the economic value of a river port in Onitsha, as against Port Harcourt and Calabar”.

The article also warned against “(1) the game plans of individuals who wish to upgrade their relevance by fighting to secure vital “federal project for Ndigbo”, while sometimes knowing that it will either not work or that it will not bring the alleged benefits, and, also; (2) The questionable security along the inland waterways, especially with active presence of militants, the Egbesu Boys, and freelance oil bunkers, creek-dependent mischief makers and others. Will the vessels really make their way through the creeks, while vehicles on our roads in broad daylight and even trains are unsafe?”

Those looking forward to a vibrant port in Onitsha were asked to think of a “water plan” to make the dream plan a reality”. The dams built across the rivers Niger and Benue, and their tributaries, over the years have reduced the overall water volume.

Dwelling on human impact factors and general Climate Change issues, the article goes on: “The confluence of some cold rivers with warmer ones have been permanently altered worldwide, while some flowing waters have been made to stagnate and create saturated water that wiped out fresh water aquatic life. Some rivers are now fragments of their former selves and others have dried up completely, as can be seen when you drive from Enugu, through Anyigba, to Abuja”.

It continues: “Massive fish populations were killed on the Snake River, Idaho, in the US by dam construction; leading to the decimation of salmon species, among others. An Idaho State Senator, Frank Church, who originally supported dam building later rose in defense of natural waterways and spoke against dams. It was the same Frank Church who, after he saw the damage to the environment, eventually wrote the Wild and Scientific Rivers Act, passed in 1968.

No one can deny historic significance of the Suez Canal and its economic value to this day, but the general global concern today about the fate of streams, rivers and other natural waterways comes from the realization that long-term damage is being done to ecosystems, following the unsustainable violation of natural habitats by damming. The negative impacts on the global food web and even the climate are staring us in the face everywhere.

Available global evidence shows that one of the main reasons freshwater fish numbers have declined all over the world, leading to a loss of 80% of fresh water wild life since 1970, is the damming of rivers. Let us recall the verdict of the World Commission on Dams, in 2000: that dams had displaced between 40 – 80 million people, making it the single human activity with the greatest capacity to create Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).

Let those who are threatening to build a river port in Onitsha remember that there is also a scaling up of plans to build more dams across waterways that discharge into the Niger trough. Let them also not forget that this is happening years after the US came upfront on a campaign to “decommission” many dams. Recorded successes in this regard, with measurable positive environmental impact, include removal of the dam on the Elwha river in Washington State. One year after the last dam was removed in 2014, the Chinook species of fish, which had not been seen there for more than 100 years reappeared.

After the last dam was removed from the River Elwha, for instance, river fish populations flourished. In a world where Brazil’s environmental agency suspended the licensing process for the Sao Luiz Tapajos dam, the second largest hydroelectric dam in the country, we have no official attitude on dams. In a world where the World Bank recently suspended financial support for the Inga 3 dam on the River Congo, and where Chile’s largest power generator, Endesa, stopped six hydropower projects, we have no position on dams. Even the Chinese stopped their plans to construct a series of dams across the country`s last free-flowing rivers, the Nujiang. The Peruvian authorities also suspended the construction of several dams across the Marañón River at about the same time that Geute Conservation Sur, an organization dedicated to the defense of ecosystems with high conservation value, is providing legal analysis to develop a new law for river protection in Chile.

The concern about water and free waterways is such that the world is focusing on transboundary cooperation between nations for conscious and deliberate management of the ecosystem and water volume throughout the length of major rivers. The conflict between China and Thailand over development on the Lancang/Mekong River says a lot about what is going on all over the world in connection with waterways today.

To think that the government of New Zealand has gone so far as to “recognize” the Whanganui River by giving it the same constitutional rights as a person? This was done as a way of showing that free-flowing rivers have great impact on food security, water access, biodiversity conservation and propagation of the overall global ecology”.

But, let us get back to the issues that sparked this recourse to a conversation about the questionable viability of Onitsha inland port. Climate Change as increasing desertification, rising water levels and much more, has grave security implications for all. The pretense about its being “none of our business” has lasted long enough. It is time for a rude self-awakening. Is Climate Change not partly, if not largely, responsible for some dimensions of the farmer/herder conflicts all over Africa?