•The chairman of NFC, Alhaji Hamzat Ahmadu presenting

an award to the guest speaker, Newton Jibunoh at the event

 

The Copenhagen conference agrees on commitments to cut and limit emissions, including a start-up and long-term funding to stop climate change from slipping out of control. JOHNSON OKANLAWON reports experts’ views, as the Federal Ministry of Environment meets with stakeholders this week to deliberate on effects of climate change

 

In both the holy Bible and Qur’an, it is said that all things are created on earth for man to use and manage. But the earth is heating up and the sun
getting is getting hotter, sometimes beyond human control. Curiously, the overwhelming evidence points finger to man’s actions on earth as being the accelerating force behind the imminent destruction of the beautiful planet.
In his lecture entitled The Vanishing Planet at the 8th memorial lecture of the late Chief S.L. Edu in Lagos, Dr. Newton Jibunoh, a foremost environmentalist and founder of FADE Africa, attributed the dying planet to desertification, bush fire, ice melting, disappearing glaciers, surface temperature and excessive rainfall.
According to him, bush fire, for instance, occurs from farming practices, lightening strikes, accidents, or plain spontaneity of flash points in the combustible environments.
He said that in the last 30 years, incidences of bush fires in the United States, Australia and even Europe had been attributed to longer and hotter summer months than usual.
“In Nigeria, the Sahara Desert has encroached into 11 Northern states with the loss of 23 percent land area in the last 20 years,” he added.
Jibunoh, who was one of the Nigeria’s delegates to the world conference on climate change in Copenhagen last December, said that during the 20th Century, sea level rose about 15cm due to melting glacier ice and expansion of warmer sea level.
He also said that if the current lifestyles were maintained, sea level might rise by as much as 59cm during the 21st Century. “If this happens, many coastal communities, small Island states, wetlands, deltas and coral reefs will be submerged,” he explained.
In Nigeria, according to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), about 25 percent of national population lives along the coastal zone and 4.5 million Senegalese live in Dakar coastal area, including Benin, Ghana, Togo and Sierra Leone where most of their national economies are also located within the coastal zones.
To Jibunoh, who drove on Volkswagen through the Sahara Desert from London to Nigeria in 1966, the fight against desert encroachment in the shelter belt regions is so pathetic and tree planting is not going well. “Trees that are planted are allowed to die or are cut down for energy. We have to adopt the green economist technology and green development to spark off vegetation in African countries. We also need to militate against rising sea level.
“And there is a lot of money needed to do that, but we do not have the technology so. We have to pay for the required technology and there has to be a kind of arrangement between the developing countries and the developed countries on how to share this technology without having to pay so much for it. This is because if we are to buy it, we may end up giving the money they (donations from developed countries at Copenhagen) are giving us back to them,” Jibunoh said.
While addressing the delegates, the Secretary -General of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Yvo de Boer, stressed that it was time to ensure that the road to Copenhagen would not be remembered as merely being paved with good intentions but to resolve outstanding issues and lead the world into action.
However, in his remark, the founder of National Conservation Foundation (NCF) in Lagos, the Managing Director of MRS Oil (former Chevron Nigeria Limited), Mr. Andrew Fawthrop, said that Chevron in Nigeria had several ongoing gas projects to achieve gas flaring out from its production.
Fawthrop, who was represented by Mr. Tope Ajayi, said the company had supported the Federal Government’s gas policies and was working with the other stakeholders for the success of the programme. “Our collaboration has resulted in the construction of Lekki Conservation Centre which was donated to NCF as well as the development and reconstruction of a two-kilometre nature trail which serves as environmental educational research centre aimed at preserving the natural endowment,” he said.
Christogonus Ejimadu and Luka Gadiga, both doctoral degree students, were both presented the 2009 Awards of the Research Grant Scheme in memory of the late Edu for their research works in nature conservation and livelihoods.
Perhaps, if Nigeria does not heed the warning signs and act fast towards forestalling environmental disasters, she may be aiding geological processes rather than mastering the earth as human beings are scripturally meant to do.
The country, it is believed needs to translate its political will, having participated in Copenhagen Conference, to action.

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