The Lagos State Govern
ment yesterday said it had created no fewer than 58,578 jobs through the implementation of some climate change mitigation strategies.
Governor  Babatunde Fashola disclosed this while declaring open the state’s Climate Change Summit in Lagos.
The  theme of the three-day summit is “Exploring Business Opportunities in Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation”.
Fashola said that the jobs were created through a number of greening projects, development of clean energy sources and shoreline protection projects.
The governor listed some of the projects as the gas-powered Independent Power Projects in Alausa and Akute, the shoreline protection project in Victoria Island and the planting of no fewer than six million trees.
Fashola said the state government was committed to mitigating the effects of climate change and making the state safer and remarked that,“the commitment and seriousness with which we have addressed issues of climate change and the threat to our environment have helped us stay abreast of the hazards of nature.
“Even though we are two metres below sea level, even though we are a city-state of many small islands, we have kept Lagos flood-free and safe,” he said.
Fashola noted that the feat was made possible through hard work, innovation and a can-do spirit, even though the threat of coastal erosion from the Atlantic was real.
The governor said that global warming was a consequence of the harmful choices made by man and the problem would be less if the right choices were made.
He said there was the need to take urgent steps to reduce the rate of greenhouse emission and population growth to lessen the effect of the problem and urged countries to adopt mitigation and adaptation strategies to reduce the harmful impact of the problem.