Nigeria: Saving the Environment Through Ecosystem Preservation

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The impact of our changing climate on human systems is the rise in the incidence and severity of climate change related disasters. After decades of skepticism about global warming and its after effects, the world has come face to face with the realities of that danger, particularly in fragile tropical landscapes where majority of the world's poorest people live on peasant agriculture.

The impact of our changing climate on human systems is the rise in the incidence and severity of climate change related disasters.

After decades of skepticism about global warming and its after effects, the world has come face to face with the realities of that danger, particularly in fragile tropical landscapes where majority of the world's poorest people live on peasant agriculture.

"The challenge of climate change is unlikely to be gender neutral as it increases the risk to the most vulnerable and less empowered social groups", Dr. Ilo Okoye has said.

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Okoye said this while presenting a paper at the workshop on environmental issues in Agricultural/Agro Industrial and Rural Development in Abuja.

The don said that the United Nations (UN) 2008 General Assembly Proceedings, has warned that global warming could cost the world up to $20 trillion over the next 20 to 25 years in order to place the world on a markedly different and sustainable energy trajectory.

According to him, the report also warned that the change could do the most harm to people who cannot afford to adapt to global warming and probably affect women than men, adding that the debate is intended to shape overall UN policy on climate change including how nations can adapt to a warmer world and ways to support the UN-led negotiations towards a new climate treaty.

The treaty, replacing the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012, could shape the course of climate change for decades to come, he said.

However, the don made no hesitation to say that while international negotiations aimed at reducing the sources of climate proceeds, efforts to respond to the consequences must likewise be developed and implemented.

"But what are the best actions to take in responding to the consequences of climate change," he questioned.

Facing the reality of competing priorities and limited resources, actions are more likely to be implemented if they offer benefits that outweigh the costs.

Among the natural resource management tools that are useful in addressing vulnerability to climate change include, many local -scale environmental management measures that have been applied as drought -proofing and anti-desertification techniques around the world, he said.

Among the measures are, soil management, water harvesting, windbreak construction and intercropping.

Okoye noted that a number of environmental management based adaptation activities can also serve as climate change mitigation measures. For example, sustainable rangelands management activities have hitherto been adopted in a number of countries to combat desertification.

Recently, these measures have been explored in terms of their simultaneous drought proofing attributes central to climate change adaptation and carbon sequestration capabilities, a central endeavor of climate mitigation.

Estimating the benefits of particular measures in response to climate change may be difficult or impossible. For that reason, those measures whose non-climate related benefits exceed the cost are measures most likely to be adopted and implemented.

These are options offering co-benefits and their identification and promotion is a primary goal. He explained that available evidence indicates that natural resource mismanagement contributes to the vulnerability reduction.

With reports of extreme floods in Kenya, Nigeria, Indonesia, Thailand, Southern Africa and India, the world has been jolted with the stark reality that it is heading towards something if urgent steps are not taken.

Similarly, deforestation, dwindling water supplies and rising sea levels are already sparking mass migrations, and provoking ethnic conflicts. UN reports on climate change indicate that humanity may have to brace for more challenges as they predict a rise in temperature by 1.4 to 5.8 degrees Celsius by 2010 in Africa.

According to him, regions that are already least secure in food production, like sub-saharan Africa, stand to be the worst victims of global warming as wet areas and dry areas become drier.

On the whole, the results have been loss of lives, destruction of property, injury and hardship inflicted on humanity, underscoring the fact that global warming is both a reality and a phenomenon that begs for collective action.

In the face of climate change, the global community, nations and local communities are undertaking actions along two primary tracks: mitigation-the process of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and associated climate change and adaptation -the process of adjusting in response to, or in anticipation of, climate change.

Environmental experts have advocated the conservation and restoration of natural resources and the destruction of coastal wetlands, dunes and mangroves may eliminate vital shock absorbers for storms, while deforestation can increase the likelihood of flooding.

The don said that both traditional communities and modern nation -states have developed disaster risk mitigation tools based on conservation of natural systems that provide 'protective' services.