Lagos eyes financial boom from climate efforts

Michael Simire in the Daily Independent (Nigeria): The Lagos State Government may be strategising towards reaping financial gains from the potentially catastrophic climate change threat. But officials hint that the bulk of the funds will go into financing climate adaptation and mitigation activities.

Apart from leveraging funds from public as well as private sources, a gathering of stakeholders suggested at the end of a three-day forum last week in the nation’s foremost business hub, that projects under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) were veritable avenues to generate direly-needed funds.

…The state was also urged to consider the adoption of the functional assessment framework approach to climate change actions as a way of facilitating the implementation of adaptation strategies. To avoid or minimise the consequences of human rights violations from climate change effects, the state was similarly charged to strengthen stakeholder consultation while taking actions to combat climate change’s impacts.

Underlining the need for a new legal regime in the country for dealing with intra-national migrations and population displacements, participants noted that such legal regime should be built upon existing human rights laws and principles.

…If the recommendations at the summit eventually see the light of day, Lagos State would adopt a participatory and multi-dimensional approach to climate change risk assessment in its development programmes and include appropriate climate change insurance mechanisms in order to hedge against the impact of climate change and also be able to decide on the right mix between mitigation and adaptation…

A neighborhood in Victoria Island, Lagos, by Eman007, under the Creative CommonsAttribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license