The federal government has reaffirmed its commitment to mitigating climate change.
Mohammed Abdullahi, Minister of Environment made this known in Abuja during the 2nd-anniversary lecture of NatureNews Africa, a publication devoted to environmental issues and the presentation of the Hero of Environment Actions for Development awards.
He said, “The current global climate finance architecture is able to operate efficiently. Nigeria took a bold step to finance climate compatibility development through collaborations within the Environment Ministry and other systems of government and the capital market to issue sub-Saharan Africa’s first-ever green bonds in 2017 and in 2018.
He explained that between 2019-2020, private sector investment accounted for 23 per cent of total climate finance committed, adding that bridging the Nigeria climate finance gap can only be achieved by the involvement of the private sector.
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The minister said that COP28’s President-designate, Dr Sultan Al Jaber’s recently acknowledged that the world was way off the Paris Agreement roadmap to a 1.5 degrees Celsius temperature goal.
He said that the world would require at least a recapitalisation of an additional $14 million by 2025 for the global south to return on track.
“That is a huge challenge financially. We have realised that resilience to the negative impact of climate change is beyond preparing or overcoming, coupled with erratic weather presentations and increase damaged infrastructure,” he said. “We need as a matter of urgency to fortify our socioeconomic systems”.
He said that the climate finance landscape study done for Nigeria in 2019-2020 shows that an average of $1.9 billion per year of public and private capital was invested in climate education activities in Nigeria, adding that this was only 11 per cent of the estimated $17.7 billion.
This story was adapted from Punch.
