LIMA (PERU) – Centre for Environmental Studies, Nassarawa State said on Monday that it would showcase climate smart village at the 21st Session of Conference of Parties (COP 21) next year in Paris, France.
climate smart village is an area being provided in rural community that serves as a pilot scheme for a particular project.
Dr Nasiru Idris, an acting Director of the centre, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday at the sidelines of the 20th session of the UN Conference of the Parties (COP 20) in Lima said Nigeria had a lot to showcase to the world.
“We have a lot to showcase and there is the need to implement the lessons learnt from the previous COP attended starting from COP 1 to COP 20.
“We planning to establish a climate smart village in a community along Abuja-Keffi by second quarter of next year.
“ We are collaborating with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) through Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to establish the village to be funded by JICA.
“We are hoping that the centre will be one of the projects to show case in Paris next year November,’’ he said.
According to him, climate smart village is an area being provided in rural community that serves as a pilot scheme for a particular project.
“The climate smart village is a unique model to promote agriculture practices that will mitigate the effects of climate change on agriculture.
“It helps communities to adapt to climate change and to ultimately become resilient to extreme weather events such as droughts and floods.’’
In addition, Idris said that the centre had qualified scholars and researchers in the area of environmental studies that could raise a centre dedicated to environmental issues to an international status.
According to him, environmental crises have become the most challenging issues facing mankind today in the contemporary era.
“There are critical elements of global environmental crises which assume some unique dimensions within the region in which the university is situated.
“ These include more direct impact of depletion of the ozone layer on the ozone, aridity and desertification, deforestation, erosion menace, dangerous environmental habits and environmental pollution.
“All these have consequences on human health and survival as well as on national development.’’
Idris, a negotiator for Nigeria on Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) at COP 20, said the centre had been collaborating with the Federal Ministry of Environment on the project.
NAN reports that REDD+ is a programme put together by three UN agencies: FAO, UNDP and UNEP, to assist developing countries to address the problems of deforestation and forest degradation.
The scope of REDD was decided at the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference that took place in Denmark and the conference agreed that REDD+ should be implemented in phases.
Meanwhile, Nigeria is among the first countries that submitted its national document on REDD +Programme and the country is implementing the first phase of the project.
Idris, however, said that Nigeria needed to move faster in implementing the project to achieve result, adding that Nigeria had the highest rate of deforestation in the world.
According to the revised deforestation figures from the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), Nigeria has the world’s highest deforestation rate of primary forests.
Between 2000 to 2005, the country lost 55.7 per cent of its primary forests, defined as forests with no visible signs of past or present human activities. (NAN)