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PROPERTY NEWS
N250b climate change trust fund initiative underway
By BY PAUL OKUNLOLA, ASSISTANT EDITOR PROPERTY
Published:Guardian, 4th July 2010
A MAJOR new initiative that will see the creation of a Strategic National Climate Change Trust Fund got underway last week in Abuja, the Federal Capital, where tentative first steps were taken towards what could become a critical new lifeline in Nigeria’s contemporary development efforts.
The facility, when operational, will establish a substantial pool of independent funding streams and resources with which to tackle local challenges arising from the changing global climate.
An initiative of the Special Climate Change Unit in the Federal Ministry of Environment, the concept will offer access to independent funding and resources to support a broad range of activities targeted at preventing the impacts of climate change from becoming what observers have described as a "development catastrophe" in the country.
Gathering at the instance of the Federal Ministry of Environment and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) - which is backing the initiative - prominent environment specialists and researchers teamed up with representatives of non-governmental organizations, international donor organizations, the media and related ‘partners,’ to weigh-in on the fundamentals of the proposal, in the first of a planned series of deliberations through which the detailed workings of the proposed facility would be fashioned out.
Growing concern over unsteady global weather patterns has elevated climate change to the status of arguably the primary environmental and development threat facing the Earth in the present century.
Locally, given Nigeria’s vast rural population that depends essentially on climate-sensitive economic and development activities " notably agriculture and fisheries " the issue is already considered a threat to sustainable development and poverty eradication in the country.
Besides, according to government officials, failure to guarantee sustainable financing of adaptation and to some extent mitigation efforts and actions could constitute a major constraint in the nation’s efforts to tackle the global phenomenon.
"To respond effectively to climate change and evolve appropriate adaptation and mitigation strategies, Nigeria will require a lot more resources than what governments at all levels alone can provide," said Professor Emmanuel Oladipo, consultant to the initiative.
"Indeed, climate change is already a critical development and survival issue for many. In several rural areas in the North today, the extent of water depletion has assumed almost alarming proportions. So, regardless of whatever international funding options are available from the Copenhagen Accord, it has become imperative that Nigeria develops its own initiatives for financing its development needs because climate change is already a very real, critical challenge," he added.
The facility, when operational, will be coming on the heels of similar initiatives already in place in Indonesia and Brazil, which only in December last year passed the legislation for establishment of its National Climate Fund.
Firm operational details of the facility are yet to be firmed up, but going by the faint outlines already being discussed, it is anticipated that it would, among others:
- establish a mechanism for coordinating the many streams of financing that the country expects to attract from the global pool of resources, with a view to preventing fragmentation and obscuring the eventual impacts of various efforts;
- enable the appropriate alignment of funding allocations to national climate change strategies; and,
- make it possible to leverage and catalyse financing of low carbon initiatives outside provisions from the Trust Fund, since, by assisting sectoral ministries to mobilize their own investment funding into low carbon development pathways, such that such activities would not remain "pilot" schemes but translate into mainstream investment options in the relevant sectors.
A precise size is yet to be agreed for the facility for now, but early estimates estimating a take-off target in the region of N250 billion over the first two years were considered likely inadequate.
Key issues that engaged discussions pertained to such questions as: what should constitute the funding basket? Who should contribute to it and what legislative support would be required? Which management structure would be best suited to manage the facility and, where should it be domiciled? What templates exist that could guide the formulation of an operational plan; and, what road-map would be required to realistically deliver the facility?
"With the development of a National Adaptation Plan of Action already underway, it is also essential that there is coordination of efforts between the National Assembly, the ministry and other non-governmental initiatives, if these efforts are to achieve their desired objectives," discussants noted at the meeting.
Indeed, added Prince Lekan Fadina, of the National business Roundtable on Sustainable Development, "Like everywhere else, the world is waiting for Nigeria, but Nigeria must wake up, and the people have a responsibility to make that happen."
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