The experts, who worked with the principle behind the United Kingdom’s Climate Change Act, determined that Nigeria’s policy should ensure cut down of greenhouse gas emission and set the best target and institutional framework for doing so.

They also recommended that it includes a carbon target budgeting, which sets clear cut budget within a short term and long term time frame, be Reviewed every year to ascertain progress; establish a committee on climate change, which agrees on how much, should be emitted and finalises discussions on the trading scheme and make provision of trading schemes, which describes the best way to offset carbon through trading.

The group of experts resolved that the National Climate Change Policy should adopt a development approach by indicating the activities that the country should engage in to reduce emission or be low in emission, that implementation must be monitor-able, reportable and verifiable (MRV) and backed with specific detailed activities.

The policy should take cognizance of the nation’s circumstances to address vulnerability and adaptation to the impact of climate change; would be useful to Nigeria in accessing the Copenhagen fund, the Global Environmental Facility Fund and reduce climate risk insurance and stimulate the carbon market.

They said the policy should have an ecosystem based approach to climate change adaptation and mitigation so that the protection of sensitive ecosystem vulnerability to climate change would be integrated in the policy framework. It should also have a policy document and a separate document that concentrates on the activities/strategies of implementing the policy.

The aim of the roundtable, attended by over 80 participants in attendance from Federal Ministry of Environment, CSO, media, HOR and the academia, was to examine issues and to propose a work plan for delivering a National Climate Change Policy and Legislation; provide Nigeria with a policy framework that tackles climate change, one that is based on strong scientific evidence. The Executive Director, International Centre for Energy, Environment and Development, (ICEED), Mr. Ewah Otu Eleri stated that much of the information required to develop a climate change policy is already being collected for the finalization of the Second National Communication.

He said the Second National Communication (SNC) provides scientific evidence for developing plans to reduce greenhouse gas, overview of financial resources, technology acquisition, capacity building and so on. It provides the evidence-base to engage in policy. That the Vulnerability Impact and Adaptation component of the SNC was to assess the subsisting and potential impacts of Climate Change on Nigeria’s ecological system; evaluate the country’s vulnerability to the actual and potential impacts of Climate Change and identifies, evaluate and recommend relevant adaptation options; that the final report would have seven Chapters namely: including Chapter 1- Background to the study; Chapter 2- Situation Analysis; Chapter 3- Methodology; Chapter 4- Results and Discussions of Vulnerability Analysis; Chapter 5- Adaptation Options; Chapter 6- Technology Transfer; Chapter 7- Best Practices from Various Zones

That outstanding issues in the SNC included the completion of the discussion of vulnerability assessment; Preparation of the executive summary; Collation of best practices from the various geopolitical zones; Table of contents and appendices; and the Delivery of first draft by first week in April, 2010; that the SNC covers only sectors that are relevant to the development due to time bound and fund limitation; therefore, a range of parameters are clustered together to enable the team assess the vulnerability.

It also recommended that the Thematic Group Inventory of Greenhouse for the SNC have the objective to produce National Inventory Report in accordance with IPCC and UNFCCC reporting formats and prepare Green House Gases inventory/Mitigation Options manual and national strategy for ensuring the sustainable inventory/Mitigations Assessment Processes; that the SNC report focuses on the agricultural, Land Use and Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF), Energy and Industrial waste sector. The final draft write-up would be April 23, 2010 and a final draft would be submitted in May, this year