The Lagos State Government has announced that it is collaborating with the United States of America Consulate in Nigeria to combat the effect of climate change through air quality monitoring and measuring as well as pollution reduction.
The state Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Tunji Bello made this known at a high-level meeting between the state officials and the consulate at Alausa, Ikeja.
Speaking at the event which had the Acting Consular General of the American Consulate, Brandon Hudspeth in attendance, Bello said that Lagos was in serious need of larger collaboration especially in human capacity building to combat climate change menace across the state.
He recalled that the state government had in 2008, in its quest to tackle climate change, commenced a Climate Change Conference which took place till 2015 when it had a break before recommencing in 2021.
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According to him, part of the resolutions of past conferences was the creation of the Lagos State Parks and Gardens Agency for continuous tree planting across Lagos in order to mitigate the effects of climate change.
He maintained that the Bus Rapid Transportation (BRT) scheme was also introduced to reduce emissions on transport because the BRT mode of transportation can convey more people at a time.
โWith the population at about 24 million in Lagos, it is obvious that human activities have warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land, adding that the Government is trying to put various measures in place so that human activities must be carried out with climate change in mindโ he stated.
Also speaking, acting U. S. Consul General, Hudspeth, said that the Consulate was happy with the various activities developed by the Lagos State Government to combat climate change.
He said that they were ready to partner and give technical expertise to further raise awareness about air pollution, adding that the U. S Consulate in Nigeria has ensured that all its buildings in Nigeria were operating on zero carbon emission.
Story was adapted from Eagle Online.
