(SINL NIGERIA) Republic of Liberia has expressed readiness to partner with Nigeria to seek solutions to effect of climate change on the environment.
This is sequel to a meeting between the Nigerian Senate committee on Ecology and climate change and a delegation from Liberian parliament and officials of the country’s ministry of Forestry held Thursday in Abuja.
Chairman of Senate Committee on Ecology and Climate Change, Senator Henry Seriake Dickson, applauded the team for the collaboration between the two nations aimed at protecting forests and natural resources and also expand the climate agenda in Africa.
Dickson, representing Bayelsa West Senatorial District noted that environment is a collective heritage of mankind, stressing that the collaboration should be extended to other Africa countries.
He said “we must come together to face challenges of abuse of the environment.
“Is a good thing that you have come from Liberia to understudy and compare note to form a common sub-regional agenda”.
He said Nigeria has set the pace with the Nigeria climate change legislation. “We are still fine tuning operation of the law, I hope Liberia has a similar law, if not, it is an area to look into”.
He added that “in terms of legislation, a major step has been taken. We commend Liberian government of responding to climate threat”.
Senator Dickson also harped on the issue of finance, pointing out that “the issue of finance is also key from fossils based to clean renewable energy.
He explained that African nations have to put on their thinking caps and see how they 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 gully 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 chad 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.”
A member of the Liberia parliament, Hon Ernest Manseah Snr, in his remarks said Nigeria being a country that is far ahead of others across the globe on mitigation against climate change, informed the choice of Nigeria as a place to visit.
“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 speaking, Nora Bowier, Deputy Managing Director -Forestry Development Authority of 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 as farming, flooding, desert encroachment and others.
“We will like to have some of you to interact with our own parliament and create sensitization” she added.
