The Nigerian Meteorological Agency has said Nigeria and other African countries can’t access the N100bn United Nations climate fund required to mitigate the impact of climate change in Africa.
This was revealed by the NiMet’s Director-General, Prof Mansur Matazu while speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the closing ceremony of the 2022 edition of the Regional Climate Outlook Forum on the Seasonal Forecasting of Agro-Hydro-Climate Characteristics for the Sahelian and Sudanian Regions of West Africa and Sahel.
Represented by an official of NiMet, Mailadi Misau, Matazu said African nations were unable to access the fund because of the complexities of accessing it.
Matazu said, “There is a UN intervention for the provision of global climate fund which is supposed to be accessible to all countries, unfortunately, African countries are unable to access this fund because of the complexity of the nature of accessing it.
“The developed nation have pledged about N100bn annually to combat climate change, especially in Africa. Unfortunately, the process of accessing this fund is so tedious and I don’t think any African country has been able to access anything significant from the fund.”
He argued that climate change was basically caused by civilised nations in Europe and America, yet the process of accessing funds meant to mitigate its impact had remained herculean.
“And the interesting thing is that Africa did not cause climate change, it was caused essentially by Europe and Americans, they exploited the situation and damaged our climate and now we have to bear the impact,” he said.
