Climate change: CAPPA’s conference calls for sustainable climate finance

By Mashe Umaru Gwamna

Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA), has called for sustainable climate finance to address challenges.
CAPPA made the call during its 2nd national conference on climate change in Abuja.
Speaking on the event tagged; “Creating Agenda for Sustainable Climate Finance for Nigeria”, Ogunlade Olamide Matins, Program Manager of CAPPA, expressed worry that the impact of climate change on Nigeria’s environmental and socio-economic systems is compounding the country’s fragility risk and reducing with speed the survival limit of its people.
“At USD 663 million in 2019/2020, adaptation finance in Nigeria is not consistent with the extent of the country’s vulnerability to climate change.
“Concessional debt is predominantly used to channel climate finance at 46% in Nigeria, followed by non-concessional debt at 25%. Grant- and equity-based finance currently play a relatively minimal role in Nigeria’s climate finance ecosystem, at 5% and 12% respectively.
“Currently, adaptation finance in Nigeria put at about 90% is financed via debt which raisesquestions in terms of debt sustainability, especially as the frequency of climate shocks increases.
“With GHG emissions rising continually since 2009 – the third highest in Africa, after the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Africa (Climate-Watch, 2019), Now is the time to initiate measures that will prevent carbon lock-in.
“Luckily, the country after COP26 passed its National Climate Change Act with clear mandates to coordinate the implementation of sectoral targets, initiate guidelines for the regulation of GHG, and drive decarbonization efforts, facilitate robust climate adaptation and disaster risk management measures among others. But two years later, the story is the same.”
On his part, Akinbode Oluwafemi, Executive Director of CAPPA, equally expressed worry that days after the African Climate Summit in Kenya, Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency (NIHSA) cautioned that about 178 local government areas (LGAS) in 32 of the 36 states in Nigeria including the Federal Capital Territory fall within the highly probable flood risk areas.
“According to the agency, more than 830 kilometres of coastline areas and communities in Nigeria are increasingly threatened by floods, erosion, water, and air pollution. Communities in the Niger Delta states bordering the Atlantic Ocean have lost or fear losing their homes and farmlands due to the eroding bedrock shielding the shoreline.
“In the Northern part of Nigeria, desertification is encroaching on arable lands, affecting roughly 580,841 square kilometers out of 927,892 square kilometers, with approximately 62 million Nigerians now directly or indirectly impacted. Climatic fluctuations, deforestation, extensive cultivation, overgrazing, marginal land use, bushfires, firewood harvesting, faulty irrigation systems, and urbanization have all been identified as major contributing factors to this phenomenon.”