CLIMATE CHANGE AND NATIONAL SECURITY

Usman Zakari urges wealthy nations to do more to boost developing countries’ fight against climate change

This year alone, there have been devastating natural disasters in many parts of the world. From deadly heat waves to fatal mudslides; unrelenting floods to raging wildfires, the world keeps experiencing extreme conditions.

Experts have put these more frequent and unpredictably severe cases of disasters down to the consequences of greenhouse gas emissions, for which human activities are mainly to blame. To compound matters, the United States pulled out of the Paris Agreement under former President Donald Trump shortly after he took office in 2017. It took President Joe Biden’s victory to return the U.S to the table.

The Paris Agreement (or the Paris Accord) is a legally binding international treaty on climate change adopted in 2015 and signed by 195 countries to cover climate change mitigation, adaptation and finance.
Here in Nigeria, the federal government has designated climate change as one of the environmental risks which constitute national security threats. Chapter three of Nigeria’s National Security Strategy (NSS) 2019 identified climate change as the most prominent environmental threat factor. “The most prominent threat factor is climate change with the associated global warming which causes high sea levels, ocean surges and coastal floods. Climate change is associated with environmental degradation. Desertification in the North and both erosion and floods in the South threaten food security.”

National Security Adviser Babagana Monguno, whose Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), designed the NSS, has long harped on climate change threat to national security. In 2018, Monguno observed that, along with ethno-religious conflicts, herder-farmer conflicts and bad politics, climate change presents imminent security challenge to the country.
More recently in June, at the second United Nations High-Level Conference of Heads of Counter-Terrorism Agencies of member states in New York, the NSA reiterated his position. He stated that COVID-19, terrorism and climate change “are the greatest threats to human existence”.

Indeed, it is difficult not to make the connection between climate change and other environmental threats which stem from prevailing systemic defects in overall environmental factor management. While there are other push-and-pull factors responsible for many of the conflicts and environmental disasters experienced in the country and beyond, climate change remains one of the key features. For instance, climate change has increased the rate of desert encroachment, which, in turn, is partly responsible for the loss of grazing reserves and obliteration of grazing routes. This is a major factor in pastoralists-farmers conflicts. Climate change has also contributed to excessive flooding across the country, causing huge human and economic losses.

In a World Bank Group report released in March 2018, Nigeria was mentioned as one of the countries to experience worsening impacts of climate change in three densely populated regions of the world. The report, titled Groundswell – Preparing for Internal Climate Migration, focused on the nexus between slow-onset climate change impacts, internal migration patterns and development in three developing regions of the world. It projected that over 140 million people could move within their countries’ borders by 2050 in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America, thereby creating a looming human crisis and threatening the development process.

Nigeria’s active involvement in climate change is therefore both instructive and imperative. To this end, the country has always maintained its commitment to global and regional cooperation in its approach to achieving environmental security and sustainability. The country has also promised to ensure participatory, technology-based environmental information management, as well as early warning systems which will be integrated into its national security architecture.

In April, President Muhammadu Buhari announced robust plans and initiatives by his administration to reverse the negative effects of climate change in Nigeria. In his address to the United Nations Climate Action Summit with the theme, A Race We Can Win, A Race We Must Win, Buhari said collective action needed to be stepped up in the race against global warming. “It is now imperative that we must step-up our collective climate actions in line with the request of the Secretary-General. I wish to reiterate Nigeria’s commitment to its obligation under the Paris Agreement, the aspirations enshrined in our Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) and ensure a resilient future that mainstreams climate risks in our decision making.”

Making good of that promise two months later, Buhari approved the Revised National Climate Change Policy and the National Climate Change Programmes for Nigeria at the Federal Executive Council meeting. Minister of Environment Mohammed Abubakar said the documents were revised to reflect “the inclusion of the Paris Agreement signed in 2015 and gender mainstreaming, which are very relevant to national response to climate change”. The Revised National Climate Change Policy and National Climate Change Programmes (action plan) are expected to run through 2021-2030.

However, for individual nations’ efforts to be effective there has to be a global recognition that climate change is a global security threat, especially among the world’s worst polluters. The goal of the landmark Paris Agreement to limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degree Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels, cannot be attained if roles and responsibilities are disproportional.
For instance, the agreement reaffirms that developed countries should take the lead in providing financial assistance to countries that are less endowed and more vulnerable.

There are also the issues of technology development and transfer and capacity building for improving resilience to climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Unfortunately, while wealthy nations (such as the U.S, China, the EU and Japan) are deploying finance, technology and capacity building to achieve zero-carbon solutions, they seem to be leaving developing countries behind.

Ironically, these are the world’s worst polluters against the world’s most vulnerable countries in the Americas, Africa and Asia. For instance, Africa contributes a mere three per cent to global greenhouse gas emissions, while the US and China combined are responsible for close to 40 per cent.
One of the topics on the agenda at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) scheduled for Glasgow, Scotland in October, therefore, should be how to boost developing countries’ response mechanisms against climate change.

• Zakari wrote from Abuja