Nigeria may lose US $460 billion to climate change by 2020

Adebiyi Adedapo in AllAfrica.com via This Day (Nigeria): The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, yesterday said Nigeria's economy rans the risk of losing between $100 billion to $460 billion to climate change by 2020. The minister said this in Abuja at the inauguration of an Advisory Committee on Agricultural Resilience in Nigeria (ACARN).

He noted that although Africa contributes very little to the green house emissions, the negative impact of climate change on the continent would be enormous. The minister added that Nigeria might have Gross, Domestic Product (GDP) loss of between two per cent and 11 per cent.

"We contribute very little to global green house emissions but Africa will have to bear the brunt of most of the impacts of climate change. If you look at it, in Nigeria, estimate shows that we could have a GDP loss of between two per cent to 11 per cent as a result of climate change and by 2020, we could be losing anything between $100 billion to $460 billion on the impact of our economy from climate change," he said.

Adesina said it was very important for the advisory committee to assist Nigeria to brainstorm on policies, technologies, and institutions that would ensure resilience of the country's agricultural system to climate change. He observed that the current agricultural systems in the country, which evolved over the time, were not enough to adapt to this particular circumstance of changes around farmers.

Adesina however, called for an urgent need for Nigeria to develop better agricultural systems which would be more resilient and robust to allow farmers adapt to the impact the climate change would have on them....