Nigeria is not doing enough to address climate risks, report showed
Nigeria, the country with the largest population in Africa, ranked 168 out of 180 countries in the Environment Performance Index (EPI) 2022.
The largest economy in the continent occupied the 41st position out of 46 countries in the sub-Saharan region, according to researchers at Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy and Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University’s Earth Institute who wrote the report.
Nigeria scored 28.32 out of 100 on 'environment and sustainability'. Along with Chad, Mauritania, Madagascar, Ghana and Liberia, it is among the poorest performing nations in the African continent on this metric.
In the sub-Saharan region, Seychelles ranked first with a global score of 32 (out of 100), followed by Botswana (35) and Sao Tome and Principe (38).
EPI is an international ranking system that measures environmental health and sustainability of countries. The assessment is based on 40 performance indicators, which are listed under three policy objectives: Environmental health, ecosystem vitality and climate change.
Nigeria, along with Cameroon, Central African Republic, India, Pakistan and Lesotho, is among the six worst-performing nations in the world on environmental health.
This means Africa’s largest economy has failed to protect its population from environmental health risks, which include poor air quality, heavy metals, sanitation and drinking water as well as waste management.
Recent studies also indicate the impact of poor air quality on the health of people in Nigeria. Around 68,500 people died due to poor quality in 2019, according to the State of Global Air report.
At least 1,650 people died due to ozone pollution in 2019. This is an over 24 per cent increase from deaths attributed to unsafe levels of ozone since 2013, when 1,330 people died due to ozone pollution, the report showed.
Economic losses due to poor air quality has been estimated to be around approximately 1 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product, according to a new update on pollution and health published in the journal Lancet May 17, 2022.
On solid waste management and ocean plastics pollution too, the country has fared poorly. This is concerning as Nigeria generates around 32 million tonnes of waste every year — among the highest in Africa, according to a report by UN Industrial Development Organization.
Of this, of which 2.5 million tonnes is plastic waste, which pollutes the oceans.
Nigeria is the 53rd most climate vulnerable country, according to Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index, but is the 6th least-ready country in the world to adapt to climate change.
Nigeria is not doing enough to address the risks, showed the poor performance on “climate policy” in EPI 2022.
The country ranked 133 (out of 180 countries) in this category and the rank slipped by over 12 places in a decade.
The findings of the EPI are important since the Climate Change Act (2021) signed on November 18, 2021 is yet to be implemented in the country. It sought to provide a framework for achieving low greenhouse gas emissions and also mainstream climate change actions into national plans and programmes.
At the 26th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Glasgow, President Muhammadu Buhari announced that Nigeria would become a Net Zero country by 2060. Net-zero emissions means the point where the country’s activities no longer add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. But this seems to be far away from the reality under business as usual, indicated EPI 2022.
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