By Olumide Idowu
Financing climate change is a major concern for Nigeria in its quest for sustainable development and transitioning to a green economy. Delivering on the Paris Agreement requires countries to effectively implement their national climate plans as well as increase their ambition over time. Achieving both of these goals requires a key item—finance.
Historically, Nigeria has not been as successful as many other developing countries in accessing available international resources to help meet these needs. A lack of understanding of climate finance funding opportunities; difficulties in crafting concept notes and applications that reflect the requirements of providers; and challenges in coordinating activities across the government so as to present a coherent vision of Nigeria’s climate finance priorities have all held back climate finance flows.
However, in the last few years, important advances have been made:
- The Clean Technology Fund is supporting the development of transformative public transport schemes in Lagos, Kano and Abuja.
- The Department of Climate Change has established a pioneering Climate Finance Unit that will enhance knowledge and information on climate finance opportunities and help develop robust project proposals.
- The Bank of Industry is in the final stages of seeking accreditation as a National Implementing Entity to the Adaptation Fund. If successful, this will allow a national organization to be responsible for implementing projects funded from this source, substantially enhancing country ownership.
- In anticipation of a successful accreditation, efforts to develop a cross-cutting project concept to support the climate resilience of some of Nigeria are poorest and most vulnerable citizens have begun.
- Issuance of Green bond to access resources from the local market.
Nigeria, the most populous black nation in the world has been classified as a developing nation (lower-middle incomes) according to World Bank 2016 Report. The country has a robust population growth with the attendant need for massive infrastructural development in the key sectors.
However, Nigeria is experiencing huge infrastructural loss in areas such as power – energy, healthcare, transport, housing, roads, and other social amenities that make life comfortable, and these have contributed in slowing the growth and development of Nigeria’s economy.
It is a well-known fact that climate change presents a lot of challenges which affect the entire world in no small measure. The consequences of this ugly monster with its far-reaching effects have been felt by both the developed and developing nations, in particular, making their lives and population vulnerable. Nigeria is battling with the difficult task of achieving stable economic development in the face of a great infrastructural deficit, alarming growing population, and inadequate financial resources to tackle her immediate needs.
Mobilizing climate finance from different climate finance sources at the international levels will depend on the country’s ability to satisfying the conditions precedents in assessing such funds and the countries developmental priorities with respect to climate change. At times it could be that the readiness process needs to be robust and implementing entities are well established. Also bankable projects and proposals for accessing such finds are well prepared. At National level the situation is quite different, national budgeting process needs to be engaged to ensure that priorities set forth in the NDC are taken account of by the budgets. Climate vulnerable sectors identified and climate issues are mainstreamed and translated into budgetary allocations of such sectors. Issuing climate bonds is another way of mobilizing climate finance from the private sector either at national or international levels.
Now, climate finance refers to the arrays of financial flows in terms of activities and projects which aim at achieving progress towards climate objectives. In fact, climate finance has been seen as a measure to respond to the threats posed by climate change to developing countries.
Developed countries have made a commitment with the aim of raising jointly 100 billion USD a year by 2020 to tackle climate needs of developing nations.
Adaptation funding is among the most promising outputs of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), but it’s also one of the ways climate assistance could fall flat. While wealthy nations have pledged nearly $10 billion to the Global Climate Fund (GCF) to help vulnerable populations, ensuring funding meets the adaptation needs of communities remains a challenge.
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can help governments and communities make better use of adaptation funding by monitoring and strengthening adaptation finance accountability to ensure local community needs are being met.
To conclude, if the government takes action, then Nigeria can prepare a credible, robust pipeline of funding opportunities and pursue the necessary steps to join the 2-degree pathway. If we do not take actions now, we might lose all our lands and goods to global warming.
Olumide Idowu is the Team Lead, Climate Wednesday. He can be contacted on Twitter via @OlumideIDOWU
__________
Inspired by Steve Biko’s ‘I Write What I Like‘, OP-UNEDITED is the citizen opinion segment of SIGNAL. All opinions posted on the OP-UNEDITED page are unedited and the raw opinions of the writers.
Do you have an opinion on any topic whatsoever and you want it published to reach a wide audience? Send it to us at editor@signalng.com, thesignalng@gmail.com
Follow us on Twitter at @thesignalng
Copyright 2017 SIGNAL. Permission to use portions of this article is granted provided appropriate credits are given to www.signalng.com and other relevant sources.
