Abbas Lawal’s COP31 Agenda

Nigeria’s message at the 31st United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP31) in Antalya, Türkiye, is familiar. It is essential that developed countries provide adequate climate finance to help developing economies confront the climate crisis.

Environment Minister Balarabe Abbas Lawal has consistently maintained that developing countries need financial assistance, technology transfer, and institutional support to meet their climate commitments.

The demand is legitimate. Wealthier nations bear greater historical responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions, and developing countries such as Nigeria face disproportionate consequences despite contributing relatively little to global emissions.

However, Nigeria must confront an uncomfortable question: what is it doing with the resources, institutions, and policy opportunities already available to it?

There is a troubling contradiction between Nigeria’s international climate rhetoric and its domestic priorities.

The country continues to depend heavily on fossil fuels, with oil and gas occupying a central position in its economic development strategy.

Government efforts to attract investment into petroleum production sit uneasily alongside commitments to achieve net-zero emissions by 2060.

The contradiction extends beyond the oil industry. Millions of Nigerians still depend on firewood and charcoal for household energy.

This dependence drives deforestation, land degradation, and desertification.

According to World Bank research, wood fuels remain Nigeria’s leading cooking energy source, with demand continuing to rise.

The farmer-herder crisis presents another test of Nigeria’s climate preparedness. Prolonged dry seasons, desertification, and competition for increasingly scarce land and water have intensified tensions between farmers and herders, though the clashes are increasingly framed in narrower terms.

Governments at the federal and state levels have yet to demonstrate a comprehensive, sustainable national response capable of addressing the underlying resource problem.

These challenges expose a fundamental weakness in the government’s climate strategy: an apparent willingness to make international financing the starting point of domestic climate action.

Climate finance should complement national commitment, not substitute for it. Nigeria needs a practical domestic action plan that does not collapse whenever promised international funding fails to materialise.

International climate finance remains essential, particularly for expensive infrastructure and large-scale adaptation projects.

Developed countries must honour their obligations. But the government must equally demonstrate that it is prepared to act independently where possible.