By Olugbenga Salami
Last week in Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory, FCT, experts and lawmakers took time to discuss new challenges for global climate change governance and action in Africa, and proffered measures to combat the effects of climate change ravaging many countries of the world.
Climate change is principally a major problem caused by the increase of human activities leading to several direct and indirect impacts on health. These climatic changes have wide-range harmful effects including increase in heat-related mortality, dehydration, spread of infectious diseases, malnutrition, damage to public health infrastructure, migration of both man and animals, among others. In Africa, climate change is causing severe impacts on the continent, including rising temperatures, extreme weather events, and sea-level rise. These changes are threatening the environment, livelihoods, and health of millions of people.
Also, countries across the world have continued to be under the threat of climate change problems like global warming, greenhouse gas effects, rising sea levels, rising sea temperatures resulting in depletion of marine organisms, earthquakes, wind storms, land and mud slides, desertification, tsunami, erosion, volcanic activities, hurricanes, pollution, deforestation, etc.
But it is good to note that environmental issues are receiving attention at all levels and the global communities are continuously making efforts toward ensuring that the world is a better place for human habitation. Of note in this regard was the validation retreat on the Draft Model Climate Change Law for Africa, organised by the African Group of Negotiators Expert Support, AGNES in collaboration with the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies, NILDS and other partners held in Abuja. Stakeholders at the retreat, titled, “Strengthening National Parliaments for Oversight in Climate Action”, called on African leaders to domesticate the draft model climate change law in their various countries. They lamented that the non domestication of the draft law by many African countries have made the continent lost huge funds to combat environmental challenges.
The Director General of NILDS, Prof. Abubakar Sulaiman, while welcoming the participants said the year 2025 presents new challenges for global climate change governance and action in Africa. He said advanced countries may attempt to politicize commitments to climate agreements, but that the evidence from climate science remains indisputable.
He said: “The world today is warmer than it was just a few years ago. Consequently, it is essential for all countries to coordinate efforts that contribute to climate mitigation and adaptation policies, while minimizing the losses and damages associated with climate change. Despite progress made by other regions in global climate change negotiations at the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of Parties (COPs), Africa continues to lag behind.
“This is largely because Africa countries participated at COPs as individual nations rather than as a united bloc. This fragmentation approach weakens Africa’s negotiating power and diminishes its ability to influence critical decisions and resolutions arising from these global gatherings. While it is true that African countries face diverse development challenges resulting from adverse impacts of climate change, the continent has yet to prioritize the coordinated climate actions in desperate needs.
“A significant barrier to achieving this coordination is the lack of comprehensive legal framework for climate action in many African countries. Even in countries like Nigeria that have enacted climate legislation, gaps remain that must be addressed through targeted legislative interventions.”
In his remarks, the team lead of AGNES, Dr. George Wamukoya, said the retreat has brought together, legal experts and people from governments who are responsible for climate change matters. According to him, the experts were expected to work on the possible legal framework that could take into account all the challenges that they are having in drafting their laws.
“We do have a draft modern climate change law which will be able, once the legal experts here have gone through it and agreed upon, then we’ll be able to see how to roll out in different countries across Africa. Now in many, some of the countries that have climate change legislation; there is conflict between the organs that have been established.
“In South Africa, for example, there is Department of Environmental Affairs and then there’s the presidential commission on climate change. Now there was no clarity as to the overlapping roles, so you end up having conflicts in decision making,” Wamukoya stressed.
At another occasion, parliamentarian and environmentalists from the Republic of Liberia sought collaboration with Nigeria on measures to combat effects of climate change, ravaging many countries of the world. Leader of the delegation, Hon. Ernest Manseah Snr, made the call during separate sessions with the Senate and House of Representatives Committees on Ecology and Climate Change, saying Nigeria being a country that is far ahead of others across the globe on mitigation against climate change, is seen as a place to visit and learn.
“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 Climate Fund, but beyond the fund, we want to tap into Nigeria’s ways of tackling the natural challenges,” he said.
Earlier, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Ecology and Climate Change, Senator Seriake Dickson (PDP Bayelsa West), said climate change is a major challenge, requiring all African countries to put up thinking cap for required ways of rising up to the challenge. “Here in Nigeria, for effective way of confronting challenges of climate change, we have an Act or better put, law with relevant provisions for measures and actions that will mitigate its effects. The Act or law is the first in Africa which makes Nigeria, one of the leading countries in the world addressing the issues of climate change but nonetheless, still needs collaboration with other countries for more effective ways of confronting challenges of climate change,” he said.
Undoubtedly, Nigeria like other countries of the world has its own experience of climate change disasters, but has since formulated the National Climate Change Policy for Nigeria 2021-2030 to assist the country in achieving its goal of meaningfully contributing of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and reduce the socio-economic impacts of adverse effects of climatic change. The medium-term outcome is to achieve a resilient socio-economic environment that promotes sustainable development and reduce emissions of GHGs.
The policy, subdivided into seven sections, was also designed to act as a mechanism for coordinating development planning, financing and monitoring of climate change initiatives and programmes in the country. It articulates the goals and objectives for climate change management in Nigeria, as well as principles and strategies to guide implementation of activities aimed at reducing the potential adverse effects of climate change on the country’s development.
According to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC report 2018, Africa, despite its low contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, remains the most vulnerable continent with impacts under all climate scenarios above 1.5 degrees Celsius. Also, despite having contributed the least to global warming and having the lowest emissions, Africa faces exponential collateral damage, posing systemic risks to its economies, infrastructure investments, water and food systems, public health, agriculture, and livelihoods, threatening to undo its modest development gains and slip into higher levels of extreme poverty.
It said climate change represents a major threat to Africa achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. United Nations Environmental Programme, UNEP-commissioned research estimates that the cost of adapting to climate change across Africa could reach $50 billion a year by 2050, if the global temperature increase is kept within 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.
Under the Paris Agreement reached at the Conference of the Parties, COP21 to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC, all countries agreed to take collective action on climate change to keep global temperature increases to no more the 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. African countries have outlined bold aspirations to build climate resilient and low-carbon economies in their Nationally Determined Contributions,, NDCs to the Paris Agreement.
Having signed and ratified the Paris Agreement, nearly all African countries have committed to enhancing climate action through reducing their greenhouse gas emissions and building resilience. For the continent, adaptation to the adverse impacts of climate change is urgent.
Good enough, on January 28, 2025, the African Development Bank, ADB’s Adaptation Benefits Mechanism, ABM piloted across Africa since 2019, became the first non-market approach registered on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Non-Market Approaches Platform. ABM is an innovative mechanism for mobilizing new and additional public and private sector finance to enhance climate change adaptation action. It has the potential to speed up host countries’ transformation toward low-carbon, climate-resilient and sustainable development pathways by certifying the value of resilience in terms of benefits and incremental costs.
The milestone confirms ABM as a pioneering cooperative mechanism for climate change adaptation under the Paris Agreement. The ABM certifies quantified adaptation benefits using rigorous methodologies and independent verification, providing transparent data on resilience improvements, co-benefits and the associated finance.
This information supports Paris Agreement reporting, SDG tracking, and ESG frameworks. Through Adaptation Benefits Supply Agreements with users of the information generated via the ABM, the mechanism enables project developers to monetize certified benefits and access capital markets, while making adaptation costs transparent.
The Director for Climate Change and Green Growth at the African Development Bank, Prof. Anthony Nyong, said: “It is time for adaptation finance to benefit from incentive mechanisms such as the ABM. Tapping into new funding sources and engaging new actors through the ABM will accelerate and scale-up the dissemination of the myriad of new and already existing adaptation technologies and solutions that are not otherwise affordable, especially to those who need them most.
“I am proud that the African continent has contributed to the global climate change effort with such a groundbreaking mechanism. We call on donors and investors with adaptation commitments to use the ABM to de-risk adaptation investments for African project developers and help demonstrate ABM’s full potential.”
The ABM was submitted to the UNFCCC by Uganda during the COP29 climate conference held in Baku in 2024, with initial support from Nigeria, Kenya, Madagascar, Benin, Gambia and Guinea.
However, many of the Africa’s commitments are conditional upon receiving adequate financial, technical and capacity building support. Nevertheless, climate change also provides opportunities for Africa to harness its huge resource potential to achieve the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs. Addressing climate change in Africa will create significant market opportunities on the continent, especially for the private sector and institutional investors.
