KanoOnline.com Forum

The fallout of the December 2009 UN conference on climate change in Copenhagen has cast serious doubts and pessimism on the developed countries  whether they can tackle climate change issues beyond the international mantra over  climate change orchestrated noise.
In view of this therefore, Africans have no choice than to seek refuge by bringing home some wave of change to their climate change problems that remain a menace to the continent.
A report by Oxfam, an international online and offline initiative that brings together an alliance of non-governmental organizations on climate change issues stated that Africa is victim number one that receives unprecedented global pollutant emissions even when it emits less than three (3) percent of the total universal percentage ratings.
It is projected that by the year 2020, between 75 and 250 million people in Africa will be exposed to increased water stress due to climate change. In some African countries such as Niger Republic and Nigeria, yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to fifty percent (50%).
However, according to the U.K government's Stern Review 2006 on the economics of climate change, Africa is the most vulnerable continent on earth, which is now facing the greatest catastrophe in human history.  There are three (3) reasons behind the U.K government's assertions. First, our continent is a home to fifteen percent (15%) of the world's population that only emits less than 3% carbon compared to the rest  of the continents that habour greatest emitters like the United States and China who today benefit greatly from the largesse of Africa's vast resources.
Second, as temperatures rise above 20C Scientists predict that an estimated two billion (2 billion) people will be affected by water shortages and majority of them are Africans. Rise in temperatures will propel a rise in sea level, and a menu for unprecedented disaster. Rising temperatures of sea surface increase the strength of the monsoon. However, rising concentrations of the greenhouse gases are beginning to have impact on the North Atlantic or Arctic Oscillation where molecules of carbondioxide and the like emit heat to space rather than draping it in the atmosphere. This strastospheric cooling, favour a winter time influx of wild marine into Northern as opposed to Southern Europe, said John M. Wallace, an atmospheric Scientist at the University of Washington.  Whether Wallace is right about the effect of the strastospheric cooling, no one is yet sure, because humanity is tempering with systems that are so complex that today's Scientists are struggling to understand them. This means Africa has no choice than to cope with year round droughts! But the question is: shall we control the wheather and changes in wheather patterns, shall we end droughts, chase and stop tropical storms, hurricane, monsoon, hail and improve meteorological conditions to our desire? Alas, the activity of mankind is today modifying precipitation in other dramatic ways. Industrial aerosols, sulfuric acid and similar acidic gases emitted by mills, refineries and power plants are suppressing rainfall downward of major industrial areas in Africa and across the globe. A polluted cloud does not simply rain itself out. It tends to grow larger and last longer and bounces sunlight out to space. While industrial aerosols like sulfuric acid reflect heat, greenhouse gases such as C02 simply trap it.
But still, the Earth has not warmed up as high as expected. We can still act and avoid the kind of calamity that happened in the case of 1930's Dust Bowl in U.S and the 1970 famine that ravaged the Sahel region of Africa where a meteorological drought was exacerbated by agricultural and pastoral practice that stripped the land bare, exposing it to the mercies of the Sun and Wind. Nonetheless, removal of vegetative cover worsens the flooding.
  The magnitude and scale of our environmental challenges as highlighted by the science of climate change reveal that most climate models show a doubling of pre-industrial levels of greenhouse gases (GHGs) i.e. water vapour, carbondioxide, carbonmonoxide and ozone , which is very likely to commit the Earth to a rise between 2-50C in global mean temperatures. This level of GHGs will probably be reached between the years 2030 and 2060. A warming of 50C on a global scale would be far outside the experience of human civilization and comparable to the difference between temperatures during the last ice age and today. Several new studies suggest up to a 20% chance that warming could be greater than 50C. The global warming is actually nothing other than gradual increase of the temperature of the Earth's lower atmosphere as a result of the increase in greenhouse gases, which occurs since the industrial revolution. Scientists have determined that a number of human activities are contributing to global warming by adding excessive amounts of GHGs to the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases such as carbondioxide accumulate in the atmosphere and trap heat that normally would exit into the outer space. While many greenhouse gases occur naturally and are needed to keep the Earth warm enough to support life, human being's use of fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas), is another main source of excess greenhouse gases.
This means if annual green house gasses emissions remained at the current level, concentrations would be more than treble pre-industrial levels by the year 2100, committing the world to 3-100Cwarming based on the latest climate projections.
What actually happens to the entire world's atmospheric condition is: the temperature of the atmosphere near the Earth's surface is warmed via natural process called greenhouse effect where visible, short wave light (solar radiation) comes from the Sun to the Earth, passing unimpeded through a blanket (filter) of thermal, or greenhouse gases composed largely of water vapour, carbonmonoxide, methane, nitrous oxide and ozone as mentioned elsewhere in this write up. An infrared radiation then reflects off the Planet's surface toward space but this time does not easily pass through the thermal blanket and/or filter (ozone layer), because it has not depleted! Some of it is now trapped and reflected downward, keeping the planet at an average temperature suitable to life, about 600F (160C). And this is what mankind has altered due to his action/inaction and karmic retribution to life.
Third, developing countries, especially in Africa, will suffer from sea level rise whereby one metre rise in the sea level predicted for the 22nd century will force 16 million Egyptians to leave their homes. Ben Fisher, British Council Director, Nigeria Office, said "we are observing the changes and feel the impacts of climate change through increasing  global temperature and rise in sea level, which by their very nature are pervasive and would impact upon all sectors of the global society, economy and environment". The poor and the rural hapless whom majority are Africans would suffer the effect.
Of course, the major causes of carbon emissions in African communities, which discharge main greenhouse gases such as water vapour, carbondioxide, carbonmonoxide and ozone into the atmosphere are due to deforestation, bush burning, industrial gas flaring around oil exploration regions such as the Niger-Delta in Nigeria. Others are cars and automobile exhausts, cigarette smoking, indiscriminate polythene bags and leathers that are used, thrown and most of the time burnt, because they are non-biodegradable. The rest of the sources are biogases found in manure and cowdungs, which when rain falls on them discharge hydrocarbon compounds such as Methane, Nitrous Oxide, Sulphur hexa-fluoride and Chlorofluorocarbons etc. These gases somehow find their way into the soil and tend to increase its acidity. Frequent rainfalls on manure and cowdung can make these somewhat acidified/basic hydrocarbon gases go down the water table and eventually find their way to our oceans, rivers, and seas thereby increasing acidification of water bodies.
Deforestation, which by and large is a product of poverty, usually forced the African rural hapless to engage in cutting and falling of trees for use as woodfuel in cooking food. This means fewer trees are left on earth, which are directly proportional to less carbondioxide conversion to oxygen in the atmosphere. Indeed, African households rely on climate sensitive resources like local water supplies and agricultural land. Climate sensitive activities in rural Africa include arable farming and livestock husbandry; and natural resources. Climate change problems now limit the availability of these local natural resources. The option left for rural households that depend on these resources, is to become naturally frustrated. They made African lands become less fertile and less local woodfuel for cooking, because few trees and shrubs are left to fallow for the downtrodden to cut and use.

Therefore, there is the urgent need for Africans to really wake up and device solutions to the climate problems bedeviling our continent. Because, as one write this, one has a very superficial solution on how to minimize the acidification of our rivers, oceans and even dams due to the fact that  it is something, which requires thinking outside the box. If for instance, we go by neutralization reaction thinking that we can try ordinary chemistry by hypothetically injecting basic components into the oceans, rivers and dams, making them to assume the position of electrolyte where at the end of it all we may get the acidic compounds in those oceans and rivers neutralized, then there is one problem that as Scientists we will live to grapple with. A heat of reaction will definitely evolve in the process and it will be detrimental to lots of aquatic animals, because they will automatically die eventually. Moreover, the end products are going to be salt and water only. Besides, consider the size of African oceans and rivers. To cover them up with this elementary technique is a gargantuan task that is extremely difficult, but probably possible. So really one needs to think critically by going back to the basics and bring out a workable formula that we will use to get a virile solution to our water body masses. But certain solutions that can curtail the effect of greenhouse gases and their discharge into the atmosphere are paramount and must be done.
Hence, what is left for Africa and Africans is to vigorously pursue aforestation programme as a one way solution to circumstantial and calamitous victimization of our continent by developed and highly industrialized nations such as the United States and China.
Going Green at the Grassroots (G3) formula is one sure way of arresting deforestation in Africa whereby a group of ten (10) to fifteen (15) people will be trained locally on how to teach the local populace the rudiments of tree planting and its associated benefits. Not only this, wood lots and shelter belt tree planting campaign in order to mitigate and balance the carbondioxide-oxygen content in the atmosphere must be taken very seriously. Each primary school pupil from class four (4) upward and secondary school students should plant and own a tree and look after it to grow. The growth and development of those trees can be monitored by entrenching tree planting subject/course in the African schools' curricula whereby marks should be awarded to pupils and students as part of the African schools' continuous assessments for end of term exams. Agric clubs and teachers can be used to nurture this idea into fruition.
Nonetheless, Africa's federal and state ministries of education, agric and environment have greater roles to play in this regard. In our domestic homes having orchards and gardens will impact positively in reducing carbon emissions into the atmosphere. In any case, if cash crops and plants can be planted in these orchards and gardens, they will serve as a source of income. The only worry here is we Africans do not simply have the mind to make it happen. And we either wake up from our slumber or we will surely be overtaken by climate change events.
In fact, some of the methodological guidelines contained therein draft decision of the 15th international conference on climate change in Copenhagen (COP 15) have not clearly outlined the procedure for arresting deforestation in developing countries. The only option left for Africa is to focus on environmental sustainability and management of our forests through shelter belt and wood lots tree planting programmes.
It is also our duty as Africans to provide an alternative energy to woodfuel for the rural populace by producing them a simple cooking facility such as single wood cooking stove that only uses one instead of tens of firewoods that are used in cooking food at majority of our local African districts. This facility is even made locally by certain African blacksmiths, particularly those that are residing around Kano metropolis in Northern Nigeria. Indeed, it is our duty as researchers on climate change problems to improve on this kind of local cooking stove technology by producing a modernized version of it en-masse and distribute it free of charge to the masses.
African heads of government must call developed and highly industrialized countries such as the U.S and China to order by imposing on them a heavy tax pay before they are allowed to use African automobile markets as dumping grounds for their certified used ( Tokumbo) cars, Okada machines (Going), and generators that produce unwholesome and unnecessary exhausts gases, which are injurious to the atmosphere and to our state of health. This can only be achieved if and only if African leaders are ready to sit up and provide basic necessities for Africans like electricity and low carbon content fuel in order to get rid of generators that discharge colossal amount of carbonmonoxide into the atmosphere thereby eventually distorting our good atmospheric condition. If at 21st century, African leaders cannot provide basic life necessities such as electricity, portable drinking water and education, to their people, then what are we saying in terms of African renaissance? Are Africans really in their senses by operating most of their businesses that require sustainable power or electricity with generators? When other continents have already excelled in science and technology, and have overcome basic life living, the Africans are still languishing and wallowing in abject poverty! What a shame? Shall we then say here that we Africans are more or less a disgrace to humanity?
The use of polythene bags to sell pure water  and in packaging shopping items in African kiosks and market stalls should be banned by African law makers(Nigeria in particular), because they are non-biodegradable. We have reached a time where these polythene bags and leathers are now a disaster to our environment. The case of Bangladesh and elsewhere in Asia is a good example to follow. In Bangladesh, one hardly buys items from Bangladeshi shops that are packaged in polythene bags.  They buy them paper wrapped!
It is very pathetic to note that conferences upon conferences, including the COP 15, which were supposed to be a defining moment of our climate history, now turn out to be pathways to stalemate that leave enormous bills for our kids and grand kids to pay, said Connie Hedegaard, Minister for the UN climate conference in Copenhagen 2009.
Therefore, the time left for Africans to act is now or never!
Jibo Nura, Quantity Surveyor, is Secretary General, African Climate Change Research Centre (ACCREC). E-mail Jibo at: africanclimatecentre@yahoo.com.