Nigeria Needs $140bn To Fight Climate ChangeWorld Bank

The World Bank says that Nigerian Government will need about 140billion dollars to mitigate negative impacts of climate change in the country.Mr Benoit Bosquet, an official of the World Bank, stated this at the Climate Change Knowledge Immersion Workshop (KIW) in Abeokuta on Monday.The workshop was organised by the World Bank in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Environment.Bosquet who is an environmental expert also called for stronger collaborations between the public and private sectors in Nigeria to mobilise resources and tackle the menace.Bosquet, who is also the Practice Manager, Africa Environment and Natural Resources, noted with concern, the severe damages climate change had caused to the ecosystem and global food production.He said Nigeria could not afford to toy with the global challenge, adding that the country would continue to get warmer by the days if the situation persisted.However, he advised stakeholders to embrace zero deforestation, renewable energy system, good transportation, electric vehicles and low carbon industrial installation to reduce global warming.Bosquet warned stakeholders against delaying action on greenhouse emissions, the sooner action is taken, the lesser the cost of adaptation.He said thatthe longer you wait, the higher the cost of adaptation.The Minister of State for Environment, Ibrahim Jibril, in an address at the workshop, called for support from the private sector and various state governments in tackling the menace.He, however, said that Nigeria would issue its first sovereign N20 billion green bond by March to finance environmental-friendly projects.This, he said, would reduce emissions and provide robust climate infrastructure like renewable energy for achieving Nigerias National Determined Contributions (NDCs) in line with the Paris Agreement.He said that the Federal Government was collaborating with the private sector including the World Bank Department of International Development (DFID) and financial institutions like Nigeria Stock Exchange on the project.
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