The African Development Bank (AfDB) has said that Nigeria can build a climate-resilient economy by adopting climate-smart agricultural practices and low-cost but effective technologies.
The technologies include water harvesting and small-scale irrigation techniques, land and water conservation and management strategies, and minimum or zero tillage agriculture with high net returns to farmers.
This is contained in the Bank’s “Country Focus Report 2022 Nigeria: Supporting climate resilience and a just energy transition ”, a copy of which was obtained by the Nigerian Tribune in Abuja.
According to the report, “The African Economic Outlook 2022 estimates of the Climate Resilience Index (CRI) show that in 2010–2019, Africa was the least climate-resilient region in the world, with both the lowest median (28.6) and mean (34.6) CRI scores, well behind Europe and Central Asia, the regions most resilient to climate shocks.
“During the same period, Nigeria was moderately resilient as compared to other African countries, with a CRI score of 26.8. Although Nigeria suffers from multiple climate change effects, manifested through rising temperatures and periodic droughts and flooding, with implications for agricultural productivity, food security and electricity generation, the country has made some progress in reducing its vulnerability.
“From 2010–2019 Nigeria performed relatively better than other African countries, falling into the category of low vulnerability to climate change and high readiness to respond to climate shocks.
“Nigeria’s climate vulnerability and readiness indices were estimated at 50.3 and 30.6, respectively, among countries ranked as ‘Low Vulnerability High Readiness’. However, at the country level, climate change effects remain a major source of policy concern, given Nigeria’s dependence on traditional agriculture and fossil fuel energy sources”.
The Report notes that “for instance, the country’s high poverty and dependence on rainfed agriculture makes adaptation efforts to climate change effects more pressing as the country strives to achieve sustainable development goals for the benefit of poor households”.
The AfDB pointed out that given the above factors, Nigeria needs to build climate resilience, and building climate resilience involves synergies with considerable mitigation co-benefits.
“As discussed in the African Economic Outlook 2022 main report, examples of building climate resilience include climate-smart agricultural practices and low-cost but effective technologies such as water harvesting and small-scale irrigation techniques, land and water conservation and management strategies, and minimum or zero tillage agriculture with high net returns to farmers — and even higher when farmers adopt complementary technologies”.
It stated that building resilience also requires transformative changes, with support from the public sector.
“Like most countries in Africa, Nigeria contributes marginally to global warming, yet the country continues to bear a disproportionately high burden of climate change effects. This is largely due to Nigeria’s economic structure which is heavily dependent on climate-vulnerable production systems, fossil fuel energy resources and traditional agricultural practices.
“Unless strong adaptation measures are judiciously implemented, the economic cost of climate change could be much higher in the coming decades. This will threaten Nigeria’s achievement of sustainable development goals (SDGs) and the country’s efforts towards poverty reduction.
“The climate change impact on agriculture, although this varies considerably by agro-ecological zone and crop type, is projected to be substantial”.
The AfDB added that under a business-as-usual scenario of the updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), agricultural productivity could decline by between 10 per cent and 25 per cent by 2080 due to climate change.
It noted that in some parts of the North, the decline in yield in rainfed agriculture could be as much as 50 per cent, this, it added would in turn impact GDP, reducing it by as much as 4.5 per cent by 2050.
“Despite significant spatial variability, the projected decline in yield is more pronounced in the northern part than elsewhere in the country and is relatively high for all crops.
“However, there is broad consensus that rice appears more prone with yields falling as much as 7 per cent in the short term (2006–2035) to 25 per cent in the long term (2050).
“Projected increases in annual maximum temperature of 3oC to 4oC from 2050 to 2070 could further impact agricultural productivity, induce water stress and reduction in the coverage of grazing pasture, leading to increased incidences of animal diseases and lower livestock production.
“Climate-induced water stress, land and forest degradation have affected soil moisture retention and weakened the ecosystem, further exacerbating the effects of climate change on agriculture.”
Source : Tribune
