As Nigeria, Liberia collaborates to mitigate the effects of climate change, The Nigerian National Assembly leadership has called on the Africa Leader’s on focus on how to curtails climate change induced, reverting that as some nations are pulling out the Paris Climate Agreement.
This was converted in a meeting as the Chairman Senate Committee on Ecology and Climate Change, Senator Henry Seriake Dickson, representing Bayelsa West Senatorial District received a group ofParliamentarian and environmentalists from the Republic of Liberia on Thursday in Abuja.
Sen. Dickson commended the team for the collaboration between the executive agencies that are the frontier of protecting forests and natural resources and also expanding the climate agenda in Africa.
He emphasized on the constraints, the challenges, adding this collaboration between the executive agencies that are the frontier of protecting forests and natural resources and also expanding the climate agenda in Africa.
“And not just for coming for these interactive visits to Nigeria alone on the part of the executive, but they also came along with their parliamentarians. And that is to be commended, so that parliamentarians need to know what your various agencies are doing, the constraints, the challenges, the gains.
“African nations have to put on their thinking caps and see how we can respond appropriately, particularly at a time that some leading nations are becoming increasingly isolationist. It means that political leadership of African nations must, more than any other time before, try to come together to see how we can find an African solution to some of these challenges, and take even common positions, not only at national levels, but also at sub-regional levels, such as what you are doing, and then also be prepared to engage on the global arena.
“Because while we are building, using scarce resources to build infrastructure every year, year in, year out, we make budgets, billions, spend in building, nature is also, year by year, destroyed by way of floods that we never saw before, by way of encroachments from the sea. For those of us who are in coastal areas, I represent the Niger Delta along the coast. The gentleman from Lagos is also by the coast.
“We know how threatened coastal communities are. And then my friends here, the erosion, the godly erosion, the land is just breaking up, in most cases swallowing up valuable houses that have been destroyed and swallowed up, farmlands gone, threatened. So we’ve got a major, major challenge.
“And in the northern part of this country, the desert is fast encroaching, year by year, year by year. Losing arable land, losing arable, you know, large green vegetation. And so the Lake Shard, for example, is drying up rapidly, displacing people, farmers, fishermen, herdsmen, being pushed to other areas and causing a lot of displacements and social disharmony and crisis.”
For the collaboration , Hon Ernest Manseah Snr , led the Liberian delegation in separate sessions with the Senate and House of Representatives Committees on Ecology and Climate Change on Thursday at the National Assembly .
Hon Manseah Snr in his remarks at the collaborative session with the Senate Committee on Ecology and Climate Change chaired by Senator Seriake Dickson ( Bayelsa West ) , said Nigeria being a country that is far ahead of others across the globe on mitigation against climate change , is seen as a place to visit and learn .
” We have come to learn from you Distinguished members of this committee on how Nigeria as a country , has been mitigating the effects of climate change .
” We are here to engage with you on that and take home , very remarkable measures being taken here to confront the environmental challenges caused by climate change .
” In Liberia , we are thinking of the Climate Fund , but beyond the fund , we want to tap into Nigeria’s ways of tackling the natural challenges “, he said .
Also, Nora Bowier, deputy Managing Director -Forestry Development Authority Liberia said that the reason for collaboration is to seek a guide from Nigeria in drafting climate change policy and the laws from the issues of climate such farming, flooding desert encroachment and others.
Other members of the Committee like the Senate Minority Whip , Senator Osita Ngwu ( Enugu West ), Senator Adetokunbo Abiru ( Lagos East) and Victor Umeh ( Anambra Central) , also commended the Liberian delegation for the visit and required collaboration , which according to the , should be expanded in scope through inclusion of other African Countries.
The Delegation thereafter proceeded to the House of Representatives for a similar collaborative session with its Committee on Ecology and Climate Change .
