NIGERIA IS GETTING READY FOR NEXT COP22 IN MARRAKECH

USPA NEWS - Few weeks ago, in major cities in Morocco, a number of conferences, workshops, group visitations were organised by the kingdom ahead of the 22nd United Nations UNFCCC (COP 22) scheduled to hold in Marrakech, a tourism hub in the country in November. Nigeria is on starting blocks.

While the country assembled over 2,000 top decision makers, researchers, technical experts, financiers, journalists and operatives of civil society to dissect the debilitating, but obviously inevitable issue of climate change, only a few African countries, including Nigeria, have invested the same kind of efforts to forestall or, at least, mitigate and adapt to the inescapable natural and man-made phenomenon.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like most countries in sub-Saharan Africa, we consider it a matter of national priority for climate change to be mainstreamed into the national policy agenda and we feel as the leader in the comity of nations in the southern hemisphere and the African continent, climate change issue should occupy a pride of place in our foreign relations agenda. For one, the climate change phenomenon has direct implications for food security-water-energy- -health-education nexus of national development. Global warming is already impacting on crop production and protection and the waterways are feeling the pulse of natural gas exploitation and environmental degradation in various forms. Sand dunes are here, just as desert encroachment have become a major source of concern in most northern states. There is little enlightenment about logging and alternative energy while millions of dollars are wasted as stop-gap measures when the features of noxious climate change rear their ugly heads. Since it has become a global matter requiring negotiation, we need to build the requisite bastion of diplomats and negotiators to interface with other groups so as to leverage on the relative advantage of being the least gas emitters yet having to pay for activities of multinational businesses prospecting for natural resources in the continent. Underlining the urgency and necessity of acting on resilience and adaptation, particularly in the water and sanitation sectors, are issues which should not only be on the policy papers but have a well laid-out operational framework and sensitisation components." According to leadership.