The Federal Government on Thursday in Abuja vowed to offer technical assistance to other African countries to advance their capacities in weather forecasting.
Prof. Mansur Matazu, the Director-General, Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet), gave the assurance during his welcome address at the opening of a two-day regional forum hosted by Nigeria.
The bodies involved in the forum are the Intra-ACP Climate Services and Related Application Programmes (CLIMSA) Committee and the Governing Board of the African Centre of the Meteorological Application for Development (ACMAD).
According to Matazu, such assistance to other African countries is crucial to boost their standard of living and to collectively qualify to access the huge Global Climate Change Fund.
“The US$100 billion COP financing mechanism will mitigate climate change disaster. It is a pledge by developed nations to developing nations which is not easy to access.
COP is the supreme decision-making body of the Convention.
“Originally for Africa, the access to these vital funds is very low. That is why NiMet is also assisting other African countries in order to raise their capacity to be able to come up with products, projects and programmes to access the funds,“ he said.
He listed countries NiMet has been helping on their daily early warning programme to include Liberia, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Mozambique and Malawi. These countries enjoy NiMet`s weather forecast activities.
The NiMet boss explained that climate changes are a result of global warming, triggered by industrialization and high emission of greenhouse gases, and released into the atmosphere. They alter normal climate variation and climate data in the world.
“Unfortunately for Africa, because of low adaptability and low mitigation measures, we have been affected and much more vulnerable to it. That is while advanced countries pledged and provided some incentives for climate change adaptation.
“For African countries, we are working hard in order to access such funds through climate adaptation progammes and climate mitigation projects,“ he added.