Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Delta state in Nigeria tackles climate change with the UNDP

Barry Agbanigbi in AllAfrica.com via the Daily Champion (Nigeria): Obviously determined to mitigate and adapt to its devastating effects, Delta State Government in conjunction with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has swung into Territorial Approach to Climate Change (TACC).

The state recently in Asaba said its stance on climate change was prompted by the negative effect it might unleash on the state in future if not properly checked. Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan who spoke through his deputy, Prof. Amos Utuama (SAN) on the issue during a brain storming session with UNDP team maintained that Climate change was a cross border phenomenon.

He said "Delta State because of its natural endowments of oil and gas has become a victim of mining and exploration with the very incidence of pollution and environmental degradation, all the fishes have disappeared from the rivers because of oil pollution. It is against this backdrop that the governor who has been witnessing this dramatic change had become a strong apostle of climate change.

"It is all our responsibility to address the adverse effects of climate change. Climate change is causing poverty as a result of dr[o]ught and even over flooding had devastated farm lands, harvest are destroyed. In fact climate change is causing havoc and if not addressed it can consume all of us at one level or the other and at one time or the other."

Bello Orubebe, state's Commissioner for Environment, also observed that the state was the first in the sub-Saharan region to develop a programme on climate change….

The state known as Delta, in Nigeria, created by Himalayan Explorer, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

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