Stakeholders in the environment sector have commended Nigeria’s implementation of its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in terms of mitigation and adaptation of climate change.
The stakeholders stated this in Abuja on Thursday, September 12, 2019 during a Focus Group Discussion on Data Collection Tools to Monitor Implementation of the NDCs in Nigeria and Africa.
It was organised by Climate and Sustainable Development Network (CSDevNet)/Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) in collaboration with African Technology Policy Studies (ATPS).
These state and non-state actors, however, said more needed to be done for Nigeria to meet up her climate pledges and achieve SDG 13 on combating climate change by 2030.
Mr Atayi Babs, National Coordinator, CSDevNet, said that NDCs spells out the actions countries intend to take to address climate change both in terms of adaptation and mitigation.
Babs, represented by Mr Samuel Jinadu, Programme Officer, CSDevNet, said Nigeria was addressing the NDCs under five sectors which include Oil/Gas, Agriculture, Transport, Energy/Power and Industry.
He said the purpose of the group discussion was to validate and streamline information as regards the NDCS by all stakeholders and see where Nigeria stood on the issue of climate change and the NDCs.
Mr Richard Okibe, NDCs Stakeholder Group Lead on Agriculture, Forestry and other Land Uses (AFOLU), said the forestry sector was ahead of all the NDCs sectors because inventory had been conducted in most of the ecological zones.
“In as much as we have other areas that need to be inventoried, we have been able to achieve the fact that most of the areas that needed to be inventoried we have done a lot of work in those areas.
“We have done Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) in Ondo state and some of the Northern states like Kebbi and Katsina. We did MRV in those areas because we wanted to cover wall to wall,” Okibe said.
Ms Gbemisola Akosa, Thematic Finance Lead, CSDevNet Paris Agreement and SDG Group, said the mitigation measure put in place in Nigeria to meet the NDCs was a work in process, however more needs to be done.
Akosa said MRV was already ongoing in the forestry sector and some secondary data was available to work with.
“We also have some secondary data we can leverage on to have a robust data around it. So, it is a work in progress.
“As we continue to progress, we now move from the process of putting what we do not have, and we begin to close up gaps as we move forward.’’
She, however, said more needed to be done to ensure gender and women issues were included in the NDCs and should be a cross cutting issue along key priority areas of the NDCs.
Dr Magnus Onuoha, Country Coordinator, ATPS, said in the area of MRV the European Union had trained few Nigerians on how to do Green House Gas (GHG) Inventory, adding that the process had helped to identify capacity across the five sectors of the NDCs.
Onuoha explained that in MRV there were three tiers and Nigeria was one transition from tier one to tier two on GHG inventory.
“Secondary data is available, but we have
not developed primary data across sectors, but we are trying to
develop our own emission factor and it is part of moving from default value of
tier one to tier two.
“Tier one means the country still makes use of global values and using these values means uncertainties is high and there is no accuracy.
“But with your own emission factor, the factors gotten from primary data the uncertainty becomes low, your data is accurate, transparent, consistent and there is comparability and completeness.”
He, however, said because only a few Nigerians had been trained on MRV, there was a need for the train the trainers programme to increase the number.
Dr Chikwerem Obi, a stakeholder in the power sector, said the power sector had come up with several mitigation measures to meet the NDCs.
Obi said in the power sector there was the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Policy as well as the Vision 2030.
“These policies were targeted towards ensuring that about 30 per cent of the capacity generation of power in our nation grid is 30 per cent of renewable energy and we are working very hard to ensure that.”
By Okeoghene Akubuike
