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Young climate change leaders in Enugu have pledged to plant 10,000 trees in Enugu as part of activities to make the state greener.

The leaders made the pledge during a visit, coordinated by Prof. Chukwumerije Okereke, to the Enugu State Government to inform him of their plan to make the state greener and more resilient.

The visit to the Enugu State government was one of the activities planned as part of the implementation of the International Visitors’ Leadership Programme (IVLP) impact award given to Prof. Okereke by the U.S. Department of State Bureau for Education and Cultural Affairs.

The IVLP impact project which was implemented in partnership with the Society for Planet & Prosperity, the Center for Climate Change & Development (CCCD) Alex Ekwueme Federal University Ndufu-Alike & Eco-Cyclers, was designed to train young climate and environmental advocates from Enugu State and environs on the role of urban greening in combating urban air pollution and climate change.

Thirty-one young climate leaders were selected from a pool of over 4,000 applicants to participate in the prestigious training programme.

The purpose of the visit was to inform the state government about the activities carried out under the project’s activities and their impact.

These activities included a two-day training on climate change, urban greening, and air quality measurements.

It also included a climate education exercise involving over 7,000 children from three public secondary schools in Enugu, as well as the planting of over 100 economic and ornamental trees in strategic locations throughout the city.

Young leaders also took advantage of the visit to express their vision and ideas for transforming Enugu into a green and climate-resilient city in keeping with the city’s reputation as a clean, ambient, and family-friendly metropolis.

The young leaders were accompanied in the visit by the honourable commissioner for environment in Enugu State, Prof. Sam Ugwu.

The SSG, Prof. Chidiebere Onyia, was very delighted to meet with the young leaders, stating that the present government in Enugu State, under the leadership of His Excellency Barrister Ndubuisi Mbah, is taking the issue of climate change seriously.

The evidence can be seen in the modification of the state Ministry of Environment to accommodate climate change and the appointment of some senior officials in the climate change sphere to ensure success and sustainability.

The SSG also informed the young leaders of a proposed trust fund for climate-related activities, which will benefit the young leaders once implementation commences.

The target is to plant about 10,000 trees around the Awhum axis in the Udi local government area of the state as a pilot.

The team presented the two artworks to the SSG on behalf of Prof. Chukwumerije Okereke.

The presentation was done by Ogechi Nwonye, Basil Ojengwa, and Elochukwu Anieze.

The SSG appreciated the young leaders and promised to ensure that the members of the team were carried along when the implementation of the trust fund is flagged off.

The Hon. Commissioner pledged to contact the young leaders once the tree-planting campaign is underway so they can join forces with the state government to make it a success.

Both the SSG and the commissioner commended Prof. Okereke for the initiative and his wider contribution to manpower and sustainable development in Enugu State, describing him as a worthy ambassador of the state

Renowned climate change governance scholar and advocate, Prof. Chukwumerije Okereke, has coordinated the visit of young climate leaders to the Enugu State Government House to share and discuss their vision for how Enugu state might become a greener and more resilient city.

The visit to the Enugu State Government on Thursday, December 21, 2023, is one of the activities planned as part of the implementation of the International Visitors’ Leadership Programme (IVLP) impact award given to Prof. Okereke by the U.S. Department of State Bureau for Education and Cultural Affairs. The IVLP impact project which was implemented in partnership with the Society for Planet & Prosperity, the Centre for Climate Change & Development (CCCD) of the Alex Ekwueme Federal University Ndufu-Alike, and Eco-Cyclers as designed to train young climate and environmental advocates from Enugu State and environs on the role of urban greening in combating urban air pollution and climate change.

Thirty-one young climate leaders were selected from a pool of over 4,000 applicants to participate in the prestigious training programme.

The purpose of the visit was to inform the state administration about the activities carried out under the project’s activities and their impact. These activities included a two-day training on climate change, urban greening, and air quality measurements. It also included a climate education exercise involving over 7,000 children from three public secondary schools in Enugu, as well as the planting of over 100 economic and ornamental trees in strategic locations throughout the city. Young leaders also took advantage of the visit to express their vision and ideas for transforming Enugu into a green and climate-resilient city in keeping with the city’s reputation as a clean, ambient, and family-friendly metropolis.

The young leaders were accompanied in the visit by the Commissioner for Environment in Enugu State, Prof. Sam Ugwu.

The SSG, Prof. Chidiebere Onyia, was very delighted to meet with the young leaders, stating that the present government in Enugu State, under the leadership of Barrister Ndubuisi Mbah, is taking the issue of climate change seriously. The evidence can be seen in the modification of the state Ministry of Environment to accommodate climate change and the appointment of some senior officials in the climate change sphere to ensure success and sustainability.

The SSG also informed the young leaders of a proposed trust fund for climate-related activities, which will benefit the young leaders once implementation commences. The target is to plant about 10,000 trees around the Awhum axis in the Udi Local Government Area of the state as a pilot.

The team presented the two artworks to the SSG on behalf of Prof. Okereke. The presentation was done by Ogechi Nwonye, Basil Ojengwa, and Elochukwu Anieze. The SSG appreciated the young leaders and promised to ensure that the members of the team are carried along when the implementation of the trust fund is flagged off.

The Commissioner pledged to contact the young leaders once the tree-planting campaign is underway so they can join forces with the stage government to make it a success. Both the SSG and the commissioner commended Prof. Okereke for the initiative and his wider contribution to manpower and sustainable development in Enugu State, describing him as a worthy ambassador of the state.

By Elochukwu Anieze, Research Fellow at the Centre for Climate Change and Development, AE-FUNAI

Director, Centre for Climate Change and Development, Alex Ekwueme Federal University, Ebonyi State, Prof. Chukwumerije Okereke, has charged young climate activists in Enugu to aspire to be champions in their field of advocacy.

Okereke gave the advice at the International Visitors Leadership (IVLP) Impact Award in Enugu, the Enugu State capital.

At the hybrid event that was monitored virtually, 30 participants, including nine female activists, took part in the competition leading to the award.

The award was tagged: “Impacts of the Urban Greening Training, Education and Advocacy”.

Okereke reminded the participants of the huge media coverage of the just concluded COP28 in Dubai, UAE, especially on the issues of fossil fuels and emissions.

“I hope that you will continue to be leaders in this space; deepen your activities to go further and higher.

“Become superstars on urban greening and climate change based on the kind of exposures and motivations you have derived from the training.

“I see a lot of African voices that are being promoted by the global media to become champions in their space and they don’t have two heads,” Okereke said.

He noted that the interactive teaching sessions the participants had been exposed to gave them the opportunity to prepare their own campaign plans.

Ogechi Nkonye, the Executive Director, Eco-Cyclers, remarked that the topic for the project, Urban Spaces and Greening, had been an eye opener for everyone.

“When we started this project, we were not expecting the type of momentum and commitment by young people from Enugu applying.

“At first, we had to choose about 15 persons from those who applied, but because of the magnanimity of Okereke, we had to increase it to 30.

“The programme was very successful, it was not just a talking shop but we had some practical aspect of it.

“We brought an expert from the University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus, to help us to test the quality of air from two different locations in Enugu.

“We planted about 35 trees in Enugu Metropolis; we also took it further,” Nkonye said.

She said that, through the project, a community of young climate change agents were formed.

Nkoye added that the community looked forward to a state-wide tree planting exercise to combat deforestation in the Enugu metropolis.

She expressed gratitude to the US Department of States that gave the award to Okereke and also to the awardee himself for his passion in raising young climate change activists, not just for Nigeria, but also for Africa.

The participants were grouped into three, A, B and C, with group B emerging as the winner, followed by A.

Group B wrote its proposal on: “Community Tree Planting and Fight Against Deforestation: Sustainable Solutions for a Greener Future”.

Okereke said: “The winners goes to Group B because they have the clarity of objectives. They want to plant 2,000 trees in Enugu State.”

Recall that the participants underwent a few days training in August, on Urban Spaces and Greening, in Enugu, which built their capacity to pitch on climate advocacy.

The event was put forward by Okereke in partnership with the Society for Planet and Prosperity, Centre for Climate Change and Development and Eco-Cylers.

By Fabian Ekeruche

First published in www.environewsnigeria.com

Stakeholders at the ongoing UN 28 Conference of Parties on Climate Change (COP28) have hailed the processes leading to the formulation of Nigeria’s Long Term Low Emission Development Strategy (LTS).

They called on other developing nations to take a cue from it.

This formed part of the shared experience between top Nigerian delegations to the conference and their counterparts from Senegal which was monitored by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) from Lagos.

NAN reports that side event at the COP 28 which held at the NDC Pavilion was titled: Long Term Climate Vision and Development Strategies: Lessons from Nigeria and Senegal.

Speaking at the event, Dr Eugene Itua, Chief Executive Officer, Natural

Eco – Capital, said that the LTS was Nigeria’s means of achieving the country’s Long Term Vision of Net Zero emission by 2060.

Itua said that the strategy adopted by Nigeria was country- driven. According to him, no fewer than 34 Nigerian experts participated in one way or the other in developing the document.

“The last aspect of it was peer review; then, there was validation which afforded many Nigerians the opportunity to make contributions to it.’’

The chief executive officer said that a major part of the process was alignment- which afforded the team to work in synergy with other stakeholders.

“Working in synergy, we came up with a document that has laid a beautiful foundation for other countries to follow,” Itua said.

Prof. Chukwumerije Okereke, the Director of the Centre of Climate Change and Development, Alex Ekwueme Federal University, Ebonyi, also spoke at the event.

He said that every country trying to develop its long term strategy should form a steering committee and a technical committee.

Okereke said that the steering committee in the case of Nigeria consisted of 12 directors from the ministries who met regularly to question the team’s assumptions, data sources and made input.

He said that there was the second committee–the technical committee–which was below the steering committee comprising 14 to 20 members selected from various ministries, departments and agencies of government who also met regularly.

Okereke said that there were suggestions to include other stakeholders from the private sector and the academia to guide the team in working out the long term strategy.

“That is why we can truly say that the document we produced was the voice of Nigerians and thus distinguished from its precursor, the Energy

Transition Plan (ETP), which is a very good document but it was produced by a smaller fraction of people, driven by Mackenzie, which formed the basis for which Nigeria met the Net Zero.

“So, when we first started the process for the LTS, we discovered that as good as the ETP was, it ignored an important aspect known as the AFOLU (Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use).

“It is difficult to achieve Net Zero target without AFOLU, which is the biggest source of subsector emission in Nigeria.

“The LTS we have done now integrates back the AFOLU emissions.

“It then means that the baseline for reducing to Net Zero was harder than it was thought when the ETP was designed.’’

He explained that when Nigeria did the expansive emission analysis using the same baseline as 2018 which was the basis for the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), it was discovered that Nigeria’s emission was higher than was reported in the NDC.

“This is because we went deeper into the AFOLU and also the transport sector.

“We could only do this because we had more indigenous technical people doing the analysis,” Okereke said.

He noted that a large percentage of African NDC had been written by experts from abroad, except South Africa and Nigeria.

The representative from Senegal, Mr Samba Fall, Climate and System Transition Manager, Enda Energie, Senegal, said that setting up his country’s LTS had been very innovative.

Fall said that Senegal had a pool of five ambassadors including researchers and policy makers.

He underscored the importance of the five groups since the country was working in different transitions including agriculture, energy and Industry.

Fall said it was a bit difficult at the onset; however, he added that Senegal developed a synergy between the ministry of the environment and that of petroleum and energy to make headway.

He said that the overall objective for Senegal was not just about planning for the LTS, but that the process, relying on local experts has positioned Senegal to plan for any climate change development issue.

Fall noted that there was a lot to learn from Nigeria in its approach to achieving its long term development strategy, adding that the lessons from Nigeria could be used to develop a regional West African LTS.