The Disaster Caused By Human Life Through Climate Change (Part 1), By Prof Mike Ozekhome, SAN, CON, OFR, Ph.D

INTRODUCTION

IT is obvious that human beings depend on their environment for existence and survival. Therefore man’s life is shaped by his environment. This emphasis the need for the protection of the environment from all forms of degradation, especially those brought about by the activities of man.

Given the significance and inevitability of the environment for the survival of man, environmental experts have argued vociferously that without the environment man cannot exist since human activities are made possible by the
existence of his environment.

In recent times, environmental issues have received and continue to receive attention at all levels globally, efforts continue to be geared towards ensuring that the world is a better place for human habitation. Of particular interest in this regard, was the signing of the Paris Climate Change agreement by United States and China which sought to cut carbon emissions by half within the next fifteen years. This endorsement is significant because the USA and China collectively reportedly account for about 40% global carbon emissions.

There is no doubt that, the world continues to be under the threat of climate change challenges such as global warming, greenhouse gas effects, flooding, acid rain typhoons, rising sea levels, rising sea temperatures (resulting in depletion of marine organisms), earthquakes, wind storms, land and mudslides, desertification, tsunami, erosion, volcanic activities, hurricanes, pollution and deforestation, amongst others.

WHAT IS CLIMATE CHANGE?

The term climate change is defined as a change in the weather patterns experienced all over the world which are not due to natural causes, but rather man-made activities. Contemporary climate change is said to be inclusive of global warming and, as the name implies is a concern to all countries around the world. Although this is in no way a new occurrence, (as they have been previous periods of climate change), the current changes are however are more rapid and have been observed to not be due to natural causes, but are rather caused by the emission of greenhouse gases, mostly carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane, burning fossil fuels for energy use creates most of these emissions. Agriculture, steelmaking, cement production, and forest loss are some of the known sources of climate change. Climate change is primarily caused by the increase of human activities. If you like; call it human mismanagement of the earth leading to several direct and indirect impacts on health. These climatic changes have wide-ranging harmful effects including increase in heat-related mortality, dehydration, and spread of infectious diseases, malnutrition, and damage to public health infrastructure, migration of both man and animals among others.

Like other countries in the world, Nigeria has her own experience of climate change disasters such as the one that struck 25 years ago in the North-Eastern region presently comprising Borno and Yobe States, the Southern part of Lake Chad, when the section ·of it that lies inside Nigerian territory dried up.

Some four decades ago, the Lake covered an area of over 40,000 square kilometers, whereas it now encompasses a mere 1,300 square kilometers. While the negative trend continues unabated and land is laid to waste by the rising temperatures leading to the rapid southward expansion of the Sahara Desert. Farmlands and surrounding villages became barren and were swallowed up by advancing desertification, which led to massive migration of people in search of more fertile terrain from the north east towards the greener plateau and middle belt regions.

Growing desertification forced thousands of Fulani herdsmen to move to the south and middle belt, and this is what has caused the fatal clashes between fulani herdsmen and crop farmers culminating in the deaths of hundreds according to reports of residents and activists. Nigeria’s Guinea Savannah region is not spared either. Logging and over-dependence on firewood for cooking have stripped a greater part of this area of its vegetation cover. The situation is similarly replicated in the south, where the forest around Oyo has long been reduced to grassland. The South-Eastern part of the country has been struck by a different form of disaster as they face gully-erosion. A gully is a landform created by running water, mass movement, or commonly a combination of both, eroding sharply into soil or other relatively erodible material, typically on a hillside or in river floodplains or terraces.

Negligence and a failure to tackle the issue of climate change by successive governments have also contributed to the rise of insurgency groups across the country. Against this backdrop, if appropriate, preventive action is not taken and adaptation measures are hot implemented in time, the results could be catastrophic.

No doubt, the need to preserve, protect and promote the environment constitutes a headache to many nations and dominate discussions and activities of government and non- government organizations across the globe. This is because the nature and prospects of the future are determined by the safety of the environment and this fact has increased the need for a healthy and functional plan to preserve and protect the environment.

It is in line with this, amongst several other factors, that a number of initiatives have been taken. These include the South-south regional intensive training workshop to strengthen stakeholders’ capacity towards mainstreaming climate change into state development plans held in Calabar, Cross River State. It was organized by Department of Climate Change under the Federal Ministry of Environment and the National Planning Commission (NPC) in collaboration with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

After the overall plenary, a communiqué was issued which identified climate change has become ‘a threat to the environment and economy in ways that will affect and impact the various sectors if left unchecked.

The communiqué emphasized the fact that climate change is a development issue that should be mainstreamed into various sectors of national, regional and state development plans. Government has also condemned the practice of open defecation, especially during the rainy season given its link to the outbreak of cholera in the country especially in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) communities calls for concern because dirty and unsafe water is the major reason for the outbreak. He called for more active participation of communities in the eradication of the menace.

In another vein, climate change can also be said to be caused majorly by flood. This is because the poor drainage system in this country has contributed to physical problems in Nigeria. Floods are major disasters affecting many countries of the world annually especially in flood plain areas, Floods do not only damage properties and endanger the lives of human and animals but also produce other secondary effects such as the outbreak of diseases like cholera and malaria. Flooding is caused by heavy downpours of rain on flat ground, reservoir failure, volcano, melting of snow and/or glaciers e.t.c. Flood risk is not just based on history, but on a number of factors: rainfall, river- flow and tidal-surge data, topography, flood control measures, and changes due to construction of building and development on flood plain areas.

The other causes of flooding are moderate to severe winds over water, unusually high tides, tsunamis due to undersea earthquakes, breaks or failures of dams, levees, retention ponds or lakes, and other infrastructure that retains water. Flooding can be aggravated by impervious surfaces or by other natural and man-made hazards which destroy soil, vegetation that can absorb rainfall. Although flooding is a natural
occurrence, man-made changes to the land can also be a factor. Development does not cause flooding perse, but can make it worse. In cities and suburbs, pavement and rooftops prevent some rainfall from being absorbed by the soil. This can increase the amount of runoff flowing into low lying areas or storm drain system.

The significance of the year 2012 flood disaster in Nigeria lies in the fact that they were unprecedented in the past forty years. Most parts of the central states of Nigeria and other adjoining states along the River Niger and Benue were devastated by these floods causing huge destruction to the rural and urban infrastructures (farmlands/crops, roads, buildings, damages, bridges, power lines e.t.c) and socioeconomic lives of the areas.

Floods occur when the soil, stream channels and man-made reservoirs cannot absorb or contain all the water. A flood that occurs suddenly with little or no prior signs, is called a flash flood and is due to intense rainfall over a relatively small area, it is inevitable resulting from the natural rain runoff process. It is a natural phenomenon and its magnitude is periodic. The periodicity of flood implies that every year some area surrounding the river (on both sides) is flooded.

Flood management-like other kinds of disaster management can be grouped into phases; the preparedness phase where activities such as prediction and risk zone identification or vulnerable mapping are taken up long before the event occurs, the prevention phase activities such as forecasting early warning, monitoring and preparation of contingency plan are made before or during the event, and the response and mitigation phase where activities are undertaken after the disaster and these includes damage assessment and relief management (Van Western et al. 1993).

Thus it can safely be said that climate change has disastrous consequences which Nigeria has begun to experience especially in the southern Nigeria as reflected in the massive flood experienced in 2012. Indeed, television reports only recently showed vast areas of Niger and Kano states experiencing massive flood tending towards the type experienced in 2012.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK

“Climate change is a terrible problem, and it absolutely needs to be solved. It deserves to be a huge priority”. (Bill Gates).

LAST LINE

God bless my numerous global readers for always keeping faith with the Sunday Sermon on the Mount of the Nigerian Project, by humble me, Prof Mike Ozekhome, SAN, CON, OFR, FCIArb., LL.M, Ph.D, LL.D, D.Litt, D.Sc. kindly, come with me to next week’s exciting dissertation.