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By Angela Atabo
The Stakeholder Democracy Network (SDN) is advocating the operationalisation of Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) for Short-Lived Climate Pollutants (SLCPs) to strengthen Nigeria’s climate action efforts.
Mrs Florence Ibok-Abasi, Country Director of SDN, said this at a workshop organised by the National Council on Climate Change (NCCC), in collaboration with SDN, and with support from the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) on Thursday in Abuja.
The initiative aims to strengthen the country’s capacity to track and reduce SLCPs like methane and black carbon, particularly in key sectors such as oil and gas, agriculture, and waste.
She said that SDN, in partnership with NCCC, was working to integrate MRV for SLCPs into Nigeria’s national framework, ensuring accurate reporting and transparency.
This move aligns with Nigeria’s commitment to reducing methane emissions by 30 per cent by 2030 and achieve its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) goals under the Paris Agreement.
“SDN has been working in the Niger Delta for over 20 years, and basically, our focus has been to support host communities to be able to engage with local governments, state governments and also oil companies.
“But beyond that, our mandate has actually been increased to providing technical assistance to the federal government, state governments and local governments as well.”
Ibok-Abasi explained that as an organisation, SDN treasured multi-stakeholder engagements, hence its name, Stakeholder Democracy Network.
“Today, we are looking at how we can continue to strengthen our MRVs.
“It is extremely important because you cannot reduce what you cannot measure, and that is why we are supporting strategies to reduce emissions of short-lived climate pollutants such as methane.”
She explained that CCAC was actually very pleased with the work SDN had done so far, saying, “we are already discussing the possibility of a second phase to ensure this intervention is duly completed.”
She said the workshop was a follow-up, building directly on the initial capacity-building session critical to strengthening institutional capacity to operationalise the MRV for SLCPs in line with overarching institutional frameworks.
She added that it supported the improved integration of SLCPs into Nigeria’s national MRV framework in accordance with the Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) under the Paris Agreement.
Also speaking, Mr Okebugwu Chukwuemeka, Assistant Director, NCCC, commended SDN for the partnership.
Chukwuemeka said that progress had been made with regard to MRV and their efforts, “so we encourage that this effort should be sustained.
“A lot of ideas are coming up and we are looking forward to seeing how we are able to harmonise these ideas to make sure that our MRV system, especially in the event of the short-lived climate pollutants, are properly integrated and estimated.”
In his remarks, Dr Bala Bappa, National Coordinator, CCAC, said the CCAC was a voluntary partnership of governments and other stakeholders committed to improving air quality and protecting the climate through targeted actions that reduced SLCPs.
Bappa said that Nigeria had been a long-standing and valued partner of the CCAC and that over the years the coalition had supported the country through a range of projects cutting across several sectors.
He noted that building on this partnership, “the CCAC is now supporting Nigeria to implement MRV for SLCPs in key sectors being implemented by SDN.”
He recalled that since inception of the project, SDN had carried out a comprehensive stakeholder mapping and proceeded to carry out consultative meetings and
stakeholder engagements across various sectors towards a successful implementation of the MRV.
Bappa said a needs and gap analysis was carried out through consultations with the respective MDAs “and the outcome was presented to us and solutions highlighted at the last workshop.”
He added that the workshop would, therefore, dwell further on the stakeholder engagements carried out and the progress made towards operationalising the MRV in some sectors.
Dr Jude Samuelson, Head of Environment and Climate Change, SDN, commended the 16 MDAs for their cooperation and for adopting the recommendations generated through the project.
Samuelson said this had strengthened their efforts to improve MRV for SLCPs.
He reaffirmed SDN’s commitment to supporting the operationalisation of MRV systems and ensuring that MDAs across key sectors build the capacity needed to effectively implement SLCP MRV. (NAN)(www.nannews.ng)
Edited by Kevin Okunzuwa
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