If not addressed in time, climate change is expected to exacerbate Nigeria's current vulnerability to weather swings and limit its ability to achieve and sustain the objectives of Vision 20:2020 [as defined in http://www.nationalplanning.gov.ng/index.php/national-plans/nv20-2020].
The likely impacts include:
- A long-term reduction in crop yields of 20-30 percent
- Declining productivity of livestock, with adverse consequences on livelihoods
- Increase in food imports (up to 40 percent for rice long term)
- Worsening prospects for food security, particularly in the north and the southwest
- A long-term decline in GDP of up to 4.5 percent
The impacts may be worse if the economy diversifies away from agriculture more slowly than Vision 20:2020 anticipates, or if there is too little irrigation to counter the effects of rising temperatures on rain-fed yields. Equally important, investment decisions made on the basis of historical climate may be wrong: projects ignoring climate change might be either under- or over-designed, with losses (in terms of excess capital costs or foregone revenues) of 20-40 percent of initial capital in the case of irrigation or hydropower.
Fortunately, there is a range of technological and management options that make sense, both to better handle current climate variability and to build resilience against a harsher climate:
- By 2020 sustainable land management practices applied to 1 million hectares can offset most of the expected shorter-term yield decline; gradual extension of these practices to 50 percent of cropland, possibly combined with extra irrigation, can also counter-balance longer-term climate change impacts.
- Climate-smart planning and design of irrigation and hydropower can more than halve the risks and related costs of making the wrong investment decision. The Federal Government could consider 10 short-term priority responses to build resilience to both current climate variability and future change through actions to improve climate governance across sectors, research and extension in agriculture, hydro-meteorological systems; integration of climate factors into the design of irrigation and hydropower projects, and mainstreaming climate concerns into priority programmes, such as the Agriculture Transformation Agenda.
