Prince Lekan Fadina is an International Negotiator on Climate Change and Sustainable Development. In this interview with, ETTA MICHAEL BISONG, the expert spoke on the concerns in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, its implication on developing countries and what Nigeria must do to avert the anticipated catastrophe.
About the IPCC report
I think the most important thing for us is to look at the objective of the report. If someone gives you a report and that report is creating waves globally, those people making those waves are they the right people? And I believe that when you have over 1,300 experts (scientists and people of different profession) come up with a report in 2004 where they said, the most critical challenge that we have in the 21st Century is Climate Change and that it is a catastrophe that if we are not careful will see to the end of the world. So, definitely there are basic issues in my view that have come out of this.
Issues in the report
Some of the things that they have identified is that climate change for instance has become a challenge, not only unto the scientists but generally to all of us. I think most importantly one of the things that that IPCC report has done is to provide government around the world more than a wake-up call. More or less, what they are saying now is that they is need to mainstream this scientific guardians into national development.
Part from their coming up with this report, there was also a group that was put together to review their report and this report have been considered by over 173 countries. Basically there are some issues we need to look at. For example in September, 2013 the group argued that climate change needs to be speed up that the global temperature was flat. And arising out of that, they are also telling us in this particular report that if we don’t control the greenhouse, then there could be a collapse of the global system. Their argument is based on some critical issues and one of them is that climate change is having impact of every ecosystem, and we have seen it in Nigeria.
Unlike their report in 2007 that talked about climate change as been the greatest threat to mankind, they have come up with something else that talk about the climate itself, and the effect of that climate. They have stated that the world needs to go towards what is call a low carbon economy. Part of the report clearly stated that we should use less of cool and fossil fuel, which means as a nation it will affect us and we have to start creating an alternative to oil. It would affect the economy of developing countries especially countries that don’t even have what it takes. The number of people living in cities that are prone to flooding from the sea will be affected. And you know for instance that most of our cities like Lagos, Cross River and Rivers are near the seas which means we need to do something.
They also mentioned that they would be a fundamental challenge to marine organism and ecosystem; this will also be a challenge to us as it will affect our maritime system. They talked about air pollution which is a very serious thing, they say this can cause health problem and we need also to address it. I recall about seven months ago the WHO came up with a report that linked about seven million deaths to air pollution worldwide, so there is a need for us to look into this kind of thing. They also talked about warmer areas that in this warmer areas disease can come up such as malaria will spread, heat related deaths will arise and so on. There are quite a lot of things that will influence mortality, public health and institutions. They also emphasis the issue of poverty and the economic shortages that will arise, this will cause conflict. We have seen it in the case of the Fulani helmsmen in Benue State.
Economic implication
The report says that GDP will be affected by climate impact because it doesn’t account for catastrophic losses which maybe most important. Example, loss and damage have entered the dictionary of global negotiation. Lost and damage are substantially important to insurance industries. It also stressed the vulnerability of the poor to climate change, which means there is a nexus between climate change, poverty and good living. Again I believe it’s something we need to look at.
The IPCC report I must also mention not only talk about the problem itself, but it also emphasis that we need to look at the totality of development. As climate change is no longer an issue of its own. It talks about the issue of social equity that we must now start to address the issue of environment, economic and social impact in anything that we do. And it has introduced into the climate change debate what is called the concept of social equity.
Solution for Nigeria
There is an urgent need for us to come up with a group that can seriously look at this report, what are the implications, what can we do, how can we do it and move forward? This is very important for us, especially now that we are aware that the United Nations Secretary- General is convening a conference in September in which Head of States had to go. It is my own personal view that Nigeria should take a leadership role in Africa.
We also need to move beyond talking, we need to create a high level advocacy. So, in my view we must seriously address those basic issues which we have raised. For me, this is not an issue you say it’s a Federal Character issue; this touches at the heart of human existence.
We must create awareness; people must know what steps we are taking. Individually, we also need to be disciplined. That report has also mentioned that apart from scientific causes arising from climate change, there are human factors. When “God gave us the Earth, He said manage my resources well.’’ That is a spiritual injection on our part. Are we managing the resources well? It’s not government alone, I don’t believe government along can do it because nobody has the monopoly of knowledge. So, there must be concerted efforts from all of us to make contributions. The most important thing is result. What is our objective to have a peaceful, climate free and healthy environment and how we get it depends on us.
On resilience and adaptation mechanism
We on our part must be able to identify our challenges; we must be able to say this is the way we want to go. Recently, the African Adaptation Report came up with some basic challenges that we face, have we addressed those ones? We must first of all put our house in order otherwise whatever anybody is telling us may not meet own needs and aspirations. And in the process of doing this we must put in place what I call a Capacity Building Mechanism that can tell people how we meet these challenges.
On Nigeria’s poor preparation to COP
Possibly the easiest way I can put it is that we need to have a roadmap of what we need to do with timeliness, with who to do, the funding and collaboration of all of us. It is not a problem of rivalry, we have to find a solution because at the end of the day the fundamental issue that we must address is the welfare of the people.