Stakeholders have called for synergy at the federal, state and local governments to produce credible climate change data.
The call was made at the Stakeholder’s Consultation Workshop on Data Analysis towards the preparation of Nigeria’s First Biennial Transparency Report (BTR1) to the UNFCCC in Abuja. It held from Wednesday, August 21 to Friday, August 23, 2024.
The workshop was organised by the National Council on Climate Change (NCCC) Secretariat with the support of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Mr. Arum Nnamdi of the Enugu State Ministry of Environment and Climate Change said data collection should cascade down to the local governments; hence capacity building is needed for those at sub-national level.
While commending efforts of the NCCC, he said more needed to be done to carry the sub-national components along as data is sourced from the localities.
The Deputy Director and Head of Climate Change Department said states must have people that understand the issues of climate change and sponsors.
He noted that the Enugu State Governor, Dr. Peter Mbah, is very much interested in green environment.
“Our governor has shown political will to tackle climate change, by establishing smart schools. The governor is taking the state back to its original design,” Nnamdi said.
The Director-General/Chief Executive Officer, NCCC, Dr. Nkiruka Maduekwe, stressed the need for credible and quality data towards the preparation of Nigeria’s First Biennial Transparency Report (BTR1) to the UNFCCC.
The Director-General/CEO said Nigeria is on course to meet the December 2024 deadline for submission.
“We need credible and quality data to develop a carbon budget. We need to know the exact GHG emissions level.
“It is critical stakeholders provide data not only for BTR to pass our climate obligations, but we also need to know where are in National Determined Contributions (NDC) implementation and climate actions,” Maduekwe stated.
She urged participants to work closely with the NCCC to achieve its mandate.
Also speaking, climate change expert, Professor Emmanuel Oladipo, called on Nigeria to have information on climate change readily available by having a national system for regenerating climate information.
On his part, Alhaji Umar Saleh Anka, Director, Environment and Climate Change, Kano State Watershed Erosion and Climate Change Management Agency, called for a bottoms-up approach for data procurement to support development planning.
He emphasised the need for a clearly defined relationship between the national and sub-national components to make credible data available.
He stressed that there should be inter-ministerial and inert-departmental synergy at the state and federal levels.
Senior Special Assistant to the President on Climate Finance and Stakeholders Engagement, Ibrahim Abdullahi Shelleng, said the federal government is committed to transparent climate actions.
Shelleng said climate finance has been difficult to access due to unavailable data.
He said this time around the federal government is supporting the NCCC Secretariat and other stakeholders to produce a validated and transparent data.
“This administrations drive has been to show our commitment in driving climate actions.
“Data is vital in your reporting. We are talking of data that is validated and transparent to present to the international community.”
The BTR preparation is an obligation to countries who are parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) of which Nigeria is a party to.
The Abuja workshop was attended by Climate Change Focal Persons and Sectoral Data Compilers from the states.
