Making Peace With Nature

Every April 22, 2021, is observed as International Mother Earth Day. It is an event commemorated
throughout the world to pledge assistance for environmental protection. Earth Day 2021 marked the 51st anniversary of the yearly celebrations. Typically, Earth Day is given a new theme or area of focus each year. This year’s theme is “Restore Our Earth.” In 2009, the United Nations (UN) designated April 22 as International Mother Earth Day.
According to the UN, Earth Day is acclaimed to remind everybody that the earth and its ecosystems provide us with life and preservation. The day also acknowledges a pooled responsibility, as called for in the 1992 Rio Declaration, to foster concord with nature and the earth to accomplish a just equilibrium among the economic, social and environmental necessities of present and future generations of humanity.
In Nigeria, environmental and climate proficiency is at a profoundly low level — possibly because people have remarkable daily remonstrances. Environmental pollution is common. Smoking generator sets, smoking automobiles, refuse burning, open defecation, indiscriminate waste disposal systems, oceans full of plastic and turning more acidic, intense heat, wildfires and floods impacting millions of people are just some fundamental ills. Oil spillage and desert encroachment are the more intricate ones. Now, we are facing Covid-19, a pandemic bearing on our ecosystem.
Since Nigeria’s economy is counting on climate-sensitive and climate-impactful industries including agriculture, forestry and extraction, we have seen human-triggered environmental degradation starting from gas flaring, oil effusion, agriculture and deforestation. These undertakings have brought about a boost in greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, and the destruction of the earth. Nigeria’s greenhouse gas emission data published by Climate Watch indicates a constant rise in greenhouse emissions from 2009 to 2018.
The information reveals the amount of greenhouse gas exuded in 2018 to be 357.52 metric tonnes. This represents more than a 5 per cent boom over the 2017 figure.  According to the Bank of the West, one metric ton is similar to 1,000 kg or 200 pieces of 50 kg bag of rice. Greenhouse gas emissions are liable for global warming and subsequent climate alternation such as floods, heatwaves, drought, which has heightened across the world.
On June 15, 2017, Nigeria aligned with other nations in an agreement known as the “Paris Climate Change Agreement” to battle greenhouse gas emissions. The Agreement seeks to deal with the task of global climate change by maintaining global temperature rises well beneath 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels this century and to pursue measures to preserve temperature rises even lower at 1.5 degrees Celsius. And as a signatory to the Paris Climate Change Agreement, Nigeria can contribute to restoring the earth through reclaiming its environment.
One way Nigeria can do this efficiently is to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emission from the energy sector. Nigeria’s greenhouse gas emission data disclose that the energy sector is the country’s largest source of greenhouse gas. Greenhouse gases are emitted during the oxidisation of fossil fuels, including coal, oil, and natural gas for petroleum production and electricity generation in the energy sector.
The growth of Nigeria’s oil industry, integrated with a population eruption and a dearth of an environmental ordinance, has ensued in considerable ecological destruction in the country, mainly in the Niger Delta region, Nigeria’s oil-producing innards. For example, the enormous flaring of natural gas in the region during oil extirpation is the primary cause of carbon emissions. According to usable data on the Nigerian gas flare tracker, 106.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO²) was emitted into the ecosystem due to gas flaring at individual flaring sites between 2016 and 2020.
Again, Nigeria must ensure proper clean-up of oil spill sites. Like gas flaring, oil spillage causes many environmental degradations, especially in the oil-rich Niger Delta region. In the last five years, there have been 3, 030 confirmed cases of oil emission, in line with the oil spill monitor of the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA). These documented cases have led to 164, 703 spilt barrels of oil, equal to 824 trucks of fully loaded oil. Reports have proven that these ebullitions contaminate the air, land and water, giving upward thrust to ravaging effects on the resident’s health and vocation.
Nigeria needs to lessen the abundance of greenhouse gas emission from the agriculture sector. The nation’s greenhouse gas emission information demonstrates that the sector is the second donor to Nigeria’s greenhouse gas emissions in the past five years, after the energy sector. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), livestock belching, fertilisers and wastes to soils encompass the most significant sources, making up 65 per cent of agricultural emanations globally. Manure management, rice cultivation, field burning of crop residues, and fuel use on farms are minor sources.
Preservation of natural forest is another way the earth can be restored. Nigeria has a warm climate and a thick rainforest that is home to over 1,000 bird, mammal, reptile, and amphibian species. For instance, the Ibadan malimbe, Sclater’s monkey, and Niger Delta red colobus are all endemic to Nigeria. However, a lot of the country’s tropical forest has already been obliterated.
According to the Global Forest Watch, an online forest monitoring website, Nigeria had 10.9 million hectares of natural forest in 2010, overlaying over 12% of its land area. However, by 2020, it would have lost 97.8 thousand hectares of natural forest, equating to 22.3 metric tonnes of CO². Thus, there is a need for more efforts to preserve Nigeria’s natural forest and reduce deforestation-associated greenhouse gas emissions. From the foregoing, we must urgently promote harmony with nature and the earth to enlist in the global movement to restore our world.
In the long run, climate change prompted by human activities must end because it can trigger excessive weather ambience and restrict economic advancement in particular sectors. As such, Nigeria has to focus on natural processes, new green technology, and ingenious thinking as a way to restore the country and the world’s environment as the theme of the 2021 International Mother Earth Day clearly specifies.