The Kano State government has vowed that funds appropriated for remediation of ecological impacted areas will be used judiciously.
The state commissioner for environment and climate change, Hon Nasiru Sule Garo stated this in an interview with journalists at the Nigerian Pavilion at the ongoing COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan.
He said the state would work with the House of Representatives to ensure the objectives of the ecological funds are not derailed.
“It was established to address specific challenges of erosion in Nigeria, and people are supposed to access that fund just for the control of erosion, but at some point, the state governments put some pressure, and that money was shared equally to the states, so we are now collaborating with the House of Representatives through the ecological fund so that a focus will be on the states not just in Kano but the states that need ecological fund so that they can be able to control erosion.
“Apart from the ecological fund, we are also working with the AcRESAL Project for the benefit of the good people of Kano State. We are also partnering with the Great Green Wall (GGW) in terms of desert encroachment.
The commissioner said the delegation was in Baku to establish partnerships with different organisations around the world to see how to make Kano environment better for the people of the state.
“In the area of financing, Kano is at the tail end of producing its own climate change policy draft, and we have almost concluded that project and we will still do the plan on how we can implement the policy, and that is a pedestal for us to be able to partner with different organizations to attract climate financing.
“For climate financing, you need to have the policy to be able to attract all the funds, and that is where we are now. We have gone far and we are trying to collaborate with different organisations to actualise the plan and access climate funding.
“Waste is another area of concern to us. It is one of the major distributors of greenhouse gas as it produces methane and so our concern is to be able to get a partnership to deal with the issue.
“Like they say, ‘waste is wealth’, so the administration of Alhaji Abba Kabiru Yusuf is very keen on making sure that we have proper waste management.
“A few years ago, Kano went into partnership with a company called Cape-Gate to manage waste, but unfortunately, they were unable to do that project for Kano State, so when this administration took over, we had to set up an ad-hoc arrangement for us to clean up Kano.
“Secondly, on the issue of land degradation, recently we have in partnership with a federal government establishment in Abuja in making sure that we are able to get resources for us to manage land degradation that we have, which is very enormous in Kano.
Buttressing the commissioner, honourable Dr Musa Ali Kachako, chairman of the environment committee of the Kano State House of Assembly, said the legislature is solidly behind efforts to tackle climate change and other environmental issues.
“As a representative of the people, we are very keen on making sure we partner with the government to ensure that relevant policies and legal frameworks are developed to address critical challenges of climate change.
“Our appearance at the ongoing COP29 gave us the opportunity to partner with the Global Legislative Forum for Climate Change. We are in the Pavillion to discuss issues that pertain to our state with them.”
The director of environment and climate change at Kano Watershed Erosion and Climate Change Management Agency KN-WECCMA, Umar Saleh Anka, commended the state for participating in COP29.
“It shows our governor’s commitment to addressing climate challenges and other environmental issues.”
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