The spectre of climate change draws ever closer to our doorsteps, affecting nearly every corner of the globe. From the cruel wildfires that ruined the beautiful Hawaiian Island of Maui, bushfires in Algeria that reduced towns to rubble, wildfires in Canada (of all places) that blanketed eastern USA down to the Gulf of Mexico with smoke, wildfires in California that burnt down hundreds of hectares of land turning them into deserts for the incoming floods to wash away in mudslides, to earthquakes in Morocco, floods in Nigeria and Libya, and desertification in Syria. Communities worldwide are grappling with nature’s fury. Although earthquakes are not consequences of climate change, the sufferings that follow these earthquakes are made worse by the adverse weather conditions caused by climate change.
In one of my articles, “Climate Change With a Vengeance,” I stated that “our forests, the lungs of our planet, are facing unprecedented challenges. The lush greenery of Africa and the Amazon, once abundant sources of life have been depleted at an alarming rate. These ecosystems have borne the brunt of human activities, giving way to infrastructural developments without adequate replenishment. As the forests disappear, we lose not only biodiversity but also critical carbon sinks that help regulate our climate”.
Regions of the Sahel, which include Senegal, Mauritania, Mail, Niger, Chad, Sudan and Eritrea, and those bordering the Sahel face ongoing desertification (desert Encroachment and environmental degradation). More than 16 countries in Africa and some other continents are affected by desertification, primarily due to a combination of environmental, climatic, and human factors. I have personally explored the growing impact of climate change on our world.
Quoting from my book, “How Little We Are”, “The Sahara is the largest hot desert in the world with an area of 9,200,000 square kilometres which is comparable to the area of China or the United States. My findings and knowledge of the terrain, which is slightly different for other deserts like the Gobi Desert and the Negev Desert, informed the content of my initial briefing to the government, and all that led to proving how little we are for not understanding nature”. I cannot stop wondering about how much nature has given us and how little it has received in return. There is a quote that says, “If all mankind were to disappear, the world will regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. But if insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos”. For such a tiny part of the entire ecosystem, humans have contributed the most to its deteriorating state. The world’s 7.6 billion people only represent just 0.01percentage of all living things on earth.
Governments worldwide are making efforts at the local, national, and international levels to combat desertification and promote sustainable land management practices to protect this fragile ecosystem and improve the well-being of their communities. Here in Nigeria, these efforts must be relentless. I have heard arguments from highly placed personalities that since we barely burn enough fossil fuels in Nigeria that could impact the Ozone layer we should slow down on implementing the protocols required of us by the Paris Accord. This argument is flawed for the following reasons and more.
Firstly, we need to look at the totality of our carbon footprints, we may not have as many vehicles on our roads as do the Europeans, we may not have as much industrialisation as they do either. But our vehicles, generators, forest destruction, overgrazing, and desertification put together more than produce a sizeable quantity of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.
Secondly, relying on such arcane arguments will breed complacency in adopting mitigating measures to contain disasters. Such disasters include flooding, wildfires, deliberate bushfires, erosion, forest depletion, and coastline erosion. I will give two examples.
Up until the first decade of this century, the Lagos Bar Beach was eroding at an alarming rate with ocean surges sending sea water to flood Akin Adesola and Ozumba Mbadiwe streets. Lagos State proceeded in 2008 to execute shoreline measures to protect the beach from further erosions.
Now what was the cause of the ocean surges and beach erosions? Two issues were at play here; the first was that in building the Tin Can Island Port in Apapa some ocean dredging work to allow ships with deep draft to proceed to the new port was carried out. The maintenance of this channel was causing the build-up of sand bars on the ocean floor near the continental shelf (the beach) which in turn was developing strong currents that were eroding the beach. The other reason was that, due to global warming, there has been an increased melting of polar ice in both the Arctic and Antarctic. These had led to about 25mm-75mm rise in sea level worldwide. These numbers may appear too small, but when you have hurricane force winds driving sea waves at high tides, you can easily end up with waves of water up to 4 meters high hitting the beaches on a regular basis.
In 2012, the Lower Niger Basin suffered from devastating floods that caused massive loss of lives, destructions to homes and farmlands in Kogi, Delta and Anambra States. Ten years later, in 2022 there was another flooding similar to the first. The first flood was blamed on unprecedented rainfall. In the latter case, the flood was said to be caused by Cameroun who released excess water from their dam to the downstream Benue River channel. The excuses coming from Nigerian authorities were completely lame. Yes, unprecedented rainfall dumped a lot of water in the area in both cases, but that was extreme weather induced. Yes, Cameroun relieved the pressure on their dam over Benue River by allowing excess water in the reservoir to drain through the spillways into the downstream channel as they would under such circumstances.
Again that excess water in the reservoir was extreme weather driven. And all these are now occurring with increased frequency. In all these we forgot to dredge the Benue and the Niger River channels as we were expected to do, or build another dam downstream of the Benue River as requested by the impact assessment study carried out at the time the dam in Cameroun was built. Even twenty-five years after the first Niger Bridge was built, one could still navigate to Onitsha or Lokoja in a big boat or ferry. Today, you cannot do any due to the presence of sand bars and mini islands in the Niger River.
I have for over thirty years sounded alarms to the dangers of ignoring the desertification going on in the north. Overgrazing, and desert creep are the primary drivers. It is very easy to set up and maintain grazing fields in the north. We do not need to move our cattle along the roads and farmlands from state to state in search of grass and fodder. Those of us who have been able to travel abroad are able to see cattle grazing in enclosed fields and paddocks. They are not let loose on the country sides to trample on people’s farms and properties. Nigerians are dying from clashes with Fulani Herdsmen. And we are all looking the other way. That is unconscionable.
Climate change driven disasters are already affecting our daily lives. From extreme heat, torrential rainfalls, flooding, mudslides, wildfires, hurricanes, typhoons, and tornadoes.
We cannot deny these facts anymore. There is currently a global effort to reduce the amounts of ºgreen gases in the atmosphere in order to limit the heating of atmospheric temperatures worldwide. One major element of this global project is the transition to electric vehicles (EV).
This will gradually limit the availability of vehicles with internal combustion engine (ICE) which use fossil fuels. Again, some people have argued that Nigeria should not be in a rush to go green since we are an oil producing nation. Well for starters, we do not even refine the oil that we produce. We also do not manufacture the vehicles or their ICE components. So, if the world shifts to EVs who will produce the ICE ones for us? Besides Nigeria will become liable to Carbon fines on an international level for endangering the planet.
Which Will Destroy Us, Nuclear Holocaust or Climate Change?
In terms of immediate catastrophic impact, an all-out nuclear war will obliterate the planet Earth. However, it is expected that before we get to that precipice, cooler heads will prevail.
On the other hand, Climate Change induced phenomena occur daily, gradually, but incrementally. It is true that if we do not reign in greenhouse gas emissions, we might reach a point where the heat index will become irreversible leading to a planet burn out at some point.
As we stand at this crossroads of potential global conflict and environmental crisis, we must heed the lessons of history and the urgent call for collective action before we destroy everything the earth has to offer.
The future remains uncertain, and the question of whether World War III or a Climate catastrophe will come first is one we dare not answer definitively. Instead, let us answer the calls to action, working tirelessly to ensure that neither of these grim scenarios becomes our reality.
Together, we hold the power to shape a future where peace prevails, and our planet thrives. The choice is ours, and the time to act is now. In the face of uncertainty, let us forge a path toward a brighter tomorrow, where cooperation, resilience, and a shared commitment to our World’s well-being will light the way forward.