Nigeria: The Burden of Climate Change
The rise in global temperatures will impact Nigeria in a big way, and the House of Representative's Committee on Climate Change has a big task at hand, in terms of cushioning the country against the consequences.
In December 2015, the largest ever single-day gathering of heads of state was achieved in Paris, France. About 150 presidents and prime ministers, from every part of the world, had come to attend the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 21), to rub minds on a particularly distressing issue - climate change.
At the end of conference, history was made, as nations of the world came to a consensus to limit global temperature increase to well below two degrees Celsius. Interestingly, the Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari, was part of the historic conference.
Although Nigeria is not one of the top emission producing countries in the world, the impact of climate change means that the country has to pay attention to what happened in Paris. Currently, the country is experiencing adverse climate conditions with negative impacts on the welfare of millions of people. Persistent droughts and flooding, off season rains and dry spells have sent growing seasons out of orbit, on a country dependent on a rain fed agriculture. Alarm bells are ringing with lakes drying up and a reduction in river flow in the arid and semi arid region. The result is fewer water supplies for use in agriculture, hydro power generation and other users.
Stuart Rankin