Is Climate Change The Cause Of Flood Disasters In Nigeria
IS CLIMATE CHANGE THE CAUSE OF FLOOD DISASTERS IN NIGERIA
By Paul Uwadima
The media headlines have been dominated recently by stories of environmental disasters that have cost the lives of many Nigerians and destruction of properties worth several billions of naira. From Lagos to Katsina and from Ibadan to Yola, floods of unprecedented proportions have taken over streets and homes rendering many homeless and exacerbating the growing poverty in the country through the destruction of properties including farmlands. Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital is on the edge. This is because this coastal settlement is being threatened by the surging Atlantic Ocean. Only recently there was a deadly ocean surge at the Lagos beach that claimed over 15 lives with properties worth several millions of naira destroyed. In the present rainy season many settlements in the country both rural and urban have some sad tales to tell of the havoc that had been caused by the ‘unusual heavy rainstorms’ witnessed this year and the season is not yet over. In one of the most pathetic of the flood disasters in Jos and environs, parents helplessly watched their children swept away by flood. There were reports of children carried away by flood from their rooms after the walls of the house they were living in carved in to the force of the flood. There remains were never found by their distraught parents. And if the warning from the meteorological office and the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) is anything to go by, there is no reprieve for the country till after October, or so.
When the recent ocean surge swept away picnickers in Lagos, the Lagos State Governor, Mr. Raji Babatunde Fashola literally threw his hands up helplessly, blaming it on climate change. It is the same narrative that is coming from many government institutions and international agencies that situates our recent unpalatable interactions with the environment as largely the result of climate change of which there is now a growing industry at home and abroad.
And what is this climatic change that is threatening Lagos and destroying lives and properties across the country. According to Wikipedia,climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions, or in the distribution of weather around the average conditions (i.e., more or fewer extreme weather events). Climate change is caused by factors that include oceanic processes (such as ocean circulation), variations in solar radiation received by Earth, plate tectonic and volcanic eruptions, and human-induced alterations of the natural world; these latter effects are currently causing global warming, and "climate change" is often used to describe human-specific impacts.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the leading international body for the assessment of climate change. It was established by the United Nations Environment Programme(UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organisation(WMO) in 1988 to provide the world with a clear scientific view on the current state of knowledge in climate change and its potential environmental and socio-economic impacts. In the same year, the UN General Assembly endorsed the action by WMO and UNEP in jointly establishing the IPCC.
Climate change or global warming has become a new reality, with deleterious effects: seasonal cycles are disrupted, as are ecosystems; and agriculture, water needs and supply, and food production are all adversely affected. Global warming (climate change) also leads to sea-level rise with its attendant consequences, and includes fiercer weather, increased frequency and intensity of storms, floods, hurricanes, droughts, increased frequency of fires, poverty, malnutrition and series of health and socio-economic consequences. It has a cumulative effect on natural resources and the balance of nature.
The impact of climate change can be vast. In Nigeria, this means that some stable ecosystems such as the Sahel Savanna may become vulnerable because warming will reinforce existing patterns of water scarcity and increasing the risk of drought in Nigeria and indeed most countries in West Africa. As well, the country’s aquatic ecosystems, wetlands and other habitats will create overwhelming problems for an already impoverished populace.
Preliminary studies on the vulnerability of various sectors of the Nigerian economy to Climate Change have been conducted by Nigeria Environmental Study/Action Trust (NEST). The sectors evaluated were based on seven natural and human systems identified by the IPCC, and condensed into five. They are ; Human settlements and health; Water resources, wetlands, and freshwater ecosystems; Energy, industry, commerce, and financial services; Agriculture, food security, land degradation, forestry, and biodiversity; and Coastal zone and marine ecosystems.
The study determined that virtually all of the sectors analysed manifested some evidence of vulnerability to climate change. None were unaffected, nor will remain unaffected in future by changes to climatic conditions.
Even with Nigeria being considered vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change, can we say with certainty that the recent environmental upheaval ravaging the country is as a result of climate change as being peddled by governments, because it is plausible to do so. Blaming climate change it seems, will absolve them of responsibility for the many lives that have been lost and properties destroyed. It is true that the climate of the world is changing and the body of evidence presented by the IPCC agrees that the world would continue to witness dire environmental consequences as a result, but the recent environmental calamities in the country may after all be caused by incompetent leadership that have little patience to address matters of environmental importance.
Nigeria has extant environmental laws and regimes that are constantly abused and often disregarded by successive administrations. Nigeria has various environmental instruments such as the ; national environmental policy which is like the bible of environmental management in the country; urban and regional planning laws; Environmental Impact Assessment(EIA) law etc. Alongside the extant environmental laws are the ministries and agencies of government like the state ministries of environment, works and housing and their federal counterparts; National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency(NESREA) among others.
Sadly for the country most agencies saddled with the management of the environment are under funded. Environment issues are often relegated at the back burners and the ecological funds are also politicised and abused by deeply corrupted bureaucracy and politicians at the detriment of the environment and those who live in it. Most of the time governments budget more funds for the building of schools, hospitals, fertilisers for farmers and all such allocations that would make it easy for corrupt officials to award contracts and earn undeserved profits. But what is the wisdom in building schools, hospitals and applying fertilisers in farmlands that would be later destroyed and washed away by floods and other disasters that could have been prevented were the government able to provide adequate funding for environmental managers and researchers? The floods wrecking havoc across many parts of the country is a wakeup call to governments to begin to take serious the issue of environmental management instead of throwing their hands up helplessly shouting climate change! Climate change!! While lives are being lost. Yes, climate change is real, but it is also true that its impacts can be mitigated by proactive action by environmental managers empowered by the government of the day.
It is a sad commentary on our leaders that many urban centres in the country does not have a master plan for solid waste management and disposal, yet government officials are making noises over the dumping of refuse on drainages. Governments should have known that without a solid waste master plan, the growing urban population that must necessarily generate wastes will naturally dump their wastes in the nearest available open space even if that open space is a gutter or a drainage area. With the drainages blocked by refuse and houses built on water channels, it does not take rocket science to know that when flooding comes, it would be disastrous.
So let us be clear about it, the incompetence of our leaders, the poor funding of the environment sector by governments at all levels, lack of solid waste management master plan, corruption, neglect of environmental experts views as well as the violations of extant environmental laws are to blame for the disasters that we are witnessing and not necessarily the result of climate change.
By Paul Uwadima
The media headlines have been dominated recently by stories of environmental disasters that have cost the lives of many Nigerians and destruction of properties worth several billions of naira. From Lagos to Katsina and from Ibadan to Yola, floods of unprecedented proportions have taken over streets and homes rendering many homeless and exacerbating the growing poverty in the country through the destruction of properties including farmlands. Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital is on the edge. This is because this coastal settlement is being threatened by the surging Atlantic Ocean. Only recently there was a deadly ocean surge at the Lagos beach that claimed over 15 lives with properties worth several millions of naira destroyed. In the present rainy season many settlements in the country both rural and urban have some sad tales to tell of the havoc that had been caused by the ‘unusual heavy rainstorms’ witnessed this year and the season is not yet over. In one of the most pathetic of the flood disasters in Jos and environs, parents helplessly watched their children swept away by flood. There were reports of children carried away by flood from their rooms after the walls of the house they were living in carved in to the force of the flood. There remains were never found by their distraught parents. And if the warning from the meteorological office and the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) is anything to go by, there is no reprieve for the country till after October, or so.
When the recent ocean surge swept away picnickers in Lagos, the Lagos State Governor, Mr. Raji Babatunde Fashola literally threw his hands up helplessly, blaming it on climate change. It is the same narrative that is coming from many government institutions and international agencies that situates our recent unpalatable interactions with the environment as largely the result of climate change of which there is now a growing industry at home and abroad.
And what is this climatic change that is threatening Lagos and destroying lives and properties across the country. According to Wikipedia,climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions, or in the distribution of weather around the average conditions (i.e., more or fewer extreme weather events). Climate change is caused by factors that include oceanic processes (such as ocean circulation), variations in solar radiation received by Earth, plate tectonic and volcanic eruptions, and human-induced alterations of the natural world; these latter effects are currently causing global warming, and "climate change" is often used to describe human-specific impacts.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the leading international body for the assessment of climate change. It was established by the United Nations Environment Programme(UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organisation(WMO) in 1988 to provide the world with a clear scientific view on the current state of knowledge in climate change and its potential environmental and socio-economic impacts. In the same year, the UN General Assembly endorsed the action by WMO and UNEP in jointly establishing the IPCC.
Climate change or global warming has become a new reality, with deleterious effects: seasonal cycles are disrupted, as are ecosystems; and agriculture, water needs and supply, and food production are all adversely affected. Global warming (climate change) also leads to sea-level rise with its attendant consequences, and includes fiercer weather, increased frequency and intensity of storms, floods, hurricanes, droughts, increased frequency of fires, poverty, malnutrition and series of health and socio-economic consequences. It has a cumulative effect on natural resources and the balance of nature.
The impact of climate change can be vast. In Nigeria, this means that some stable ecosystems such as the Sahel Savanna may become vulnerable because warming will reinforce existing patterns of water scarcity and increasing the risk of drought in Nigeria and indeed most countries in West Africa. As well, the country’s aquatic ecosystems, wetlands and other habitats will create overwhelming problems for an already impoverished populace.
Preliminary studies on the vulnerability of various sectors of the Nigerian economy to Climate Change have been conducted by Nigeria Environmental Study/Action Trust (NEST). The sectors evaluated were based on seven natural and human systems identified by the IPCC, and condensed into five. They are ; Human settlements and health; Water resources, wetlands, and freshwater ecosystems; Energy, industry, commerce, and financial services; Agriculture, food security, land degradation, forestry, and biodiversity; and Coastal zone and marine ecosystems.
The study determined that virtually all of the sectors analysed manifested some evidence of vulnerability to climate change. None were unaffected, nor will remain unaffected in future by changes to climatic conditions.
Even with Nigeria being considered vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change, can we say with certainty that the recent environmental upheaval ravaging the country is as a result of climate change as being peddled by governments, because it is plausible to do so. Blaming climate change it seems, will absolve them of responsibility for the many lives that have been lost and properties destroyed. It is true that the climate of the world is changing and the body of evidence presented by the IPCC agrees that the world would continue to witness dire environmental consequences as a result, but the recent environmental calamities in the country may after all be caused by incompetent leadership that have little patience to address matters of environmental importance.
Nigeria has extant environmental laws and regimes that are constantly abused and often disregarded by successive administrations. Nigeria has various environmental instruments such as the ; national environmental policy which is like the bible of environmental management in the country; urban and regional planning laws; Environmental Impact Assessment(EIA) law etc. Alongside the extant environmental laws are the ministries and agencies of government like the state ministries of environment, works and housing and their federal counterparts; National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency(NESREA) among others.
Sadly for the country most agencies saddled with the management of the environment are under funded. Environment issues are often relegated at the back burners and the ecological funds are also politicised and abused by deeply corrupted bureaucracy and politicians at the detriment of the environment and those who live in it. Most of the time governments budget more funds for the building of schools, hospitals, fertilisers for farmers and all such allocations that would make it easy for corrupt officials to award contracts and earn undeserved profits. But what is the wisdom in building schools, hospitals and applying fertilisers in farmlands that would be later destroyed and washed away by floods and other disasters that could have been prevented were the government able to provide adequate funding for environmental managers and researchers? The floods wrecking havoc across many parts of the country is a wakeup call to governments to begin to take serious the issue of environmental management instead of throwing their hands up helplessly shouting climate change! Climate change!! While lives are being lost. Yes, climate change is real, but it is also true that its impacts can be mitigated by proactive action by environmental managers empowered by the government of the day.
It is a sad commentary on our leaders that many urban centres in the country does not have a master plan for solid waste management and disposal, yet government officials are making noises over the dumping of refuse on drainages. Governments should have known that without a solid waste master plan, the growing urban population that must necessarily generate wastes will naturally dump their wastes in the nearest available open space even if that open space is a gutter or a drainage area. With the drainages blocked by refuse and houses built on water channels, it does not take rocket science to know that when flooding comes, it would be disastrous.
So let us be clear about it, the incompetence of our leaders, the poor funding of the environment sector by governments at all levels, lack of solid waste management master plan, corruption, neglect of environmental experts views as well as the violations of extant environmental laws are to blame for the disasters that we are witnessing and not necessarily the result of climate change.
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