Climate Action in Nigeria: An Analysis

W ITH rising greenhouse gas emissions, climate change is occurring at rates much faster than anticipated and its effects are being clearly felt worldwide. Nigeria, as a developing country with a population of about 180 million, has been adversely impacted by climate change due to obvious vulnerability and low coping capability. Consequently, on December 12, 2015, during a United Nations-sponsored meeting in Paris, COP21, dubbed 'Paris Agreement', Nigeria joined 194 other countries to make a historic pledge to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. To demonstrate Nigeria's commitment to the pledge, on March 28, 2017 President Muhammadu Buhari signed the Instrument of Ratification of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, which was approved by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on May 16, 2017. The Paris Agreement entered into force on June 15, 2017. Ranked amongst the top 25 Green-House Gas (GHG) Emitting Countries, Nigeria is required to mobilize its citizens and other stakeholders for the effective implementation of measures to reach the target of a 20 percent unconditional reduction in green-house gas emissions by 2030, and to implement policies that will enable the country to reach the goal of 100 percent renewable energy by 2050. In this edition of the SDGs Monitor, we appraise Nigeria's implementation of goal number 13 of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which is Climate Action (SDG13). Our assessment of Nigeria's efforts to attain the targets of SDG13 shows that the country's emission reduction strategy focuses on such key sectors as Energy, Oil and Gas, Agriculture and Land Use, Power, and Transport. However, based on the fact that the 2016 Climate Change Vulnerability Index (CCVI) classifies Nigeria as one of the ten countries in the world which are most vulnerable to climate change, the country is not on track with respect to achieving SDG 13. The analysis by our consultant, Daniel A. Omoweh, a Professor of International Relations at Western Delta University, Oghara and former Associate Research Professor at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, reveals that the Nigerian government has approached the discourse on climate change with its usual approach, namely limiting consideration of such a critical development issue to ministries and parastatals. The study recommends that since climate change is about the environment, which is an international public good, it requires input from the people, civil society, the private sector and the media to put Nigeria on the path to attaining SDG Happy reading