By Mashe Umaru Gwamna
The Minister of Environment, Dr. Mohammad Abubakar ,said the ministry is focusing on a sustainable climate smart economic diversification with green job development.
Dr. Abubakar made the disclosure recently during the ministerial briefing on recent positive developments in the environment sector.
” the value chains for our teaming youth, a just energy transition and access to electricity for all Nigerians, provision of a healthy environment by the National Decarbonization of all the NDC sectors towards a Net-Zero trajectory.
“This includes electric mobility, clean cooking energy systems, energy efficient building and infrastructure, and importantly, mainstreaming Circular Economy in all strata of National production and consumption while prioritizing gender issues.”
According to Dr. Abubakar, the new Revised Nationally Determined Contributions is an opportunity for Nigeria to follow in the path of Low Carbon Development for sustainable development for all.
“With the approval of HE President Muhammadu Buhari (GCFR), Nigeria on the 30th of July, 2021 submitted its final and Updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. This has now replaced the interim updated NDC that was submitted on the 27th of May 2021.
“We have raised our ambition in this updated NDC, by including emission reduction from the waste sector, for the first time, and increasing our conditional contribution. Hence this updated NDC has an unconditional contribution of 20% below Business-as-Usual by 2030 and 47% contribution conditional on international support.
‘The new Revised Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC’s) is an opportunity for Nigeria to follow the path of Low Carbon Development, which will in turn facilitate an equitable and sustainable development for us. We are taking these ambitious pledges carefully also in consideration of low economic growth and the myriad of challenges attributable to the COVID 19 pandemic.
“This demonstrates our commitment to play the leading role on sustainable development in Africa. We are focusing on a sustainable and climate smart economic diversification with green job development along the value chains for our teaming youth, a just energy transition and access to electricity for all Nigerians, provision of a healthy environment by the National Decarbonization of all the NDC sectors towards a Net-Zero trajectory.
“In order to ensure compliance with International best practice as recommended in the UNEP report on the clean-up of Ogoni land, the Minister of Environment explained, that Nigeria s will do whatever is humanly possible to accelerate the process.
“After about two years of careful logistic arrangements, Community contacts and Technical preparations, the first phase of twenty one (21) clean-up and remediation contracts were rolled out, followed by another set of 29 remediation and 7 tier-2 assessment contracts in 2020.
“The recent reconstitution of the GC and BOT of HYPREP as approved by Mr. President we are gaining speed, by pragmatically addressing other recommendations in the UNEP report including provision of Potable water to Ogoni communities, Training of Youths for sustainable alternative Livelihood (5000 in the plan), Public Health inventory, Environmental Surveillance and construction of Centre of Excellence for Environmental Studies/Remediation.
“In order to ensure compliance with International best practice as recommended in the UNEP report, UNEP provides Quality Assurance and Quality Control (QA/QC) and project management advisory to HYPREP.
“To date, we are working on 25 of the sites reported in the UNEP report. The 25 sites were divided into 51 remediation project lots, and 18 lots in the first batch of 21 lots have been completed and certified by NOSDRA and five (5) of the 29 lots in batch 2 are undergoing NOSDRA certification process to be completed soon. The seven Tier-2 assessments have been completed,”the minister said .
Speaking further, he revealed that 11 African countries that made up the Pan-African Agency of the Great Green Wall (PAGGW) have endorsed Nigeria to produce the next Chairman of the Summit of Heads of State and Government of their regional organization.
The countries are Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Sudan and Nigeria, too.
He stated that the endorsement took place during the ‘7th Ordinary Session of the Council of Ministers of PAGGW’, last Thursday, in Nouakchott, Mauritania.
He said: “The Council believes that President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria is capable of taking the GGW delivery structure to a higher level if he becomes the Chairman of the Summit of Heads of State and Government of PAN-GGW.
“If the Nigerian President takes over the leadership of the PAN-GGW, it would be easier for the GGW programme to access about 5 billion USD as grant and 14 billion USD soft loan available out there because of the respect the world has for the President.”
He maintained that, the PAGGW Council of Ministers at their ordinary session, further agreed that Nigeria host the ‘8th Ministers’ Meeting’ of PAGGW later in the year.
Dr. Abubakar, said Nigeria was also picked to host the ‘5th Summit of the Heads of State and Government of the PAGGW’, virtually, in September.
“Members of the Council voted that President Muhammadu Buhari assumes the Presidency of the Heads of States and Government of the PAGGW, while Dr. Mohammad Mahmood Abubakar assumes the Chairmanship of the Council of Ministers, at the end of the 5th Summit,” he added.
While speaking further, the Minister, disclosed that the International Monetary Fund (IMF), European Union Bank had expressed support for the GGW programme.
He noted that the importance of using the GGW programme to address the biodiversity problem of Africa cannot be overemphasized.
Meanwhile, The minister appreciated and commended the media for factual and unbiased reportage of the progress being made in Ogoni land Clean-up exercise.
“I urge you to continue this important contribution even as I call on you to join government in the fight against Pipeline vandalisation, illegal refining resulting to oil spills and re-pollution.
“Above all, I call on the Media to Support the efforts of government in the fight against Pollution, desertification, erosion control and the negative effects of Climate Change”,he emphasized.
