 All right, welcome back. It's time for us to take a look at our very first hot topic, governments policies and how they affect climate change companies. I have been joined, we have been joined by Mr. Frank Eliana, technology and media news editor as business day. Hello, Frank. Yeah, good morning and it's also a pleasure joining you. Yes, you're welcome, Frank. I think the best place to start is to find out what Nigeria's policy, the government's policy is on climate change today. Okay, so in 2021, Nigeria actually came up with a policy on climate change which essentially tries to align with the global best practices on climate change and also to help companies rearrange or say, re-strategize their policies towards becoming more responsive and more responsible with climate change. And of course, there are various arguments to support the move by the Nigerian government if you've seen the incidence of a flooding that we have experienced in recent times across the country. Several places have been submerged by rain and you have the incidence of droughts in many places. So there is a need for us to start talking about the climate change in the country. But where are we now in that move? It is not enough to come up with a policy. How would you describe the implementation of that policy so far? Well, it has been off and on, as with all things Nigeria. We haven't quite gotten the implementation part very well. But be that as it may, I'm an advocate for moderation. I feel that when we come to the climate change discussion, there's a need for us also to consider the fact that we have the developmental challenges. There's a lot that Nigeria has yet to achieve. And to achieve some of these developmental challenges or to solve them, you would need more than just being a compliant country to climate change. You probably will need some fossil fuels to make that happen. We know that the developed world has had their day. They've used fossil fuels to develop themselves. And currently, if I may, countries like China, the United States, Japan, UK, and several others are actually among the top 10. In fact, if I could go through the top five, China, for instance, emits 10.065 billion tons of CO2. The United States emits about 5.4 billion tons of CO2. India, 2.6. Russia, 1.7. Japan, 1.1. And guess how much Nigeria emits? Nigeria emits 126 million tons of CO2. So if we're talking about the top 10, Nigeria is not even on that table and not on that discussion. So it is often very important for us to try to balance it to say, yeah, we're going to try to be compliant. But to some extent, we still need to do a lot with fossil fuel. It's something that you cannot just avoid. We don't have electricity, constant electricity. And if you want to achieve that, if you want to bring in energy, you can't do that just by depending on solar energy. You can't do that just by depending on the wind and also hydrogen, because these things have challenges. There are points where you get to your solar power failure. So you have to revert back to your grid power. So if you have issues around mobility transportation, we can't just say let's go to electricity cars or electric cars, because currently they're very expensive in the market. And the income levels of the average Nigerian out there is not up to par to actually start acquiring electric cars. So there needs to be a balance with what we have and where we want to get to. I also know that these climate change discussion is very attractive at the moment because of the phones that come with it. So you see Nigerian leaders go abroad and make a lot of promises and then come back home and do the other thing that they didn't promise. So I feel that yes, we need to start aligning, but then also we need to also start also consider the fact that there will be an extent to which we can go to to pursue the climate change policies. Well, climate change discussion has dominated discourse across the globe. And it's something that serious is of serious concern to almost anyone living on Earth today. Eco-anxiety is a thing among so many people, maybe not in Nigeria, but in other parts of the world. Eco-anxiety is a thing. Canada is presently experiencing heat wave as some other countries have experienced from time to time. And Nigeria here, you've alluded to the flooding that we experienced not long ago. However, as much as we want to see these things happen, you know, policies that would encourage climate change companies to thrive, we also will not be oblivious to the fact that politics will have something to do with it at some point. Because governments being supported by fossil fuel industries may have a bit of challenge or, you know, a bit of challenge in making policies that would affect business, in quotes as it were, right? Yes. So absolutely, you're very supportive. I mean, you can't deny the fact that we make a lot of money from our oil, all right? Saudi Arabia makes a lot of money from its oil as well. And some of these countries, where you have Venezuela, you have Iran, even the United States currently is among the top oil producers in the world. So everyone needs the oil revenue that they generate, you know, and that's also where it is a tricky balance for many countries also, including Nigeria. You can't wish away, you can't wish away the importance of climate change, yes, but then also you can't also forget the fact that you need to develop, you need to come up to some level with these other countries that have already arrived, you know, we're not at the same level with the United States, we're not at the same level with Canada. I'm talking about the heatwave, they've been expressing heatwave for a very, very long time, it's not the first time they're going to express this, maybe it has increased, maybe other natural disasters have also increased, you know, but then we can't wish away the fact that they have arrived at some point where they need to now start thinking about we need to do this for ourselves, but for us here in Nigeria it needs to, we need to contextualize and ask ourselves what's really important to us, you know, and talking about flooding also, we can also remove the fact that some of our leaders have been very irresponsible in the way they handle flooding. Name-mates for instance have been issuing notices telling people this is when flooding is going to happen, but then you don't have this responsiveness from the government to say this is the action we're going to take. Many governments don't even have a plan of how they want to address flooding, there are issues around how do you build your roads, how do you people construct your sewage, how do you do your drainage, some roads don't have drainage, some roads are done without it, so a lot of things run, you know, and then even some, some states don't even have roads, in some places you don't have roads and when flooding comes those are just easy parts for flooding to take over, so when we start constructing things or building things the way they're supposed to build, the way they're supposed to be built in the first instance, then we can now start talking about okay so we have built it but we are still experiencing flooding, what else can we do, you know, and perhaps also this is also the best time for us to now start considering when we are building roads how can we make it sustainable, how can we make it compliant to some of the climate change standards that are coming out, you know, but we can't remove the fact that we need to develop our communities, we need to give people a sense of belonging in terms of the kind of infrastructure that we put out there, you know, so we need these things like yesterday, we need light, we need more roads, we need several things, you know, but flooding is it going to stop, I don't think flooding is ever going to stop but I think we can reduce it by just taking proactive measures, governors can start taking proactive measures and with little things like alerting the people, building shelters for them so that when flooding happens you can take them to those shelters later on you can bring them back, you know, so issues around housing, we haven't even gotten our housing problems correct so those things need to be addressed and we then know how we can take it from there, climate change is important, yes, but for us in Nigeria we need to contextualize what is the most priority for us at the moment. This priority is because climate change, when we're talking about climate change, the people of Nigeria seem not to be catching on, they don't like Moritz said that maybe not in Nigeria because we in Nigeria we don't think really much about it, we still fell our trees, we still burn bushes, we still do a lot of things, we even roast our goats and cows with tires and all that so are we really taking it seriously, what do we need to do, what do we need to change? I think two things is education, we just need for more education but then you can't really blame people who are still doing some of the things that you talked about because if you're hungry you won't be thinking about climate change really, if you can put food on your table for your children, I don't think climate change will be the biggest issue that you have, many people are still doing subsistence agriculture, it is like one of the largest mode of generating food in Nigeria so until we come to the point where people do their first priority, their first instinct is not to survive, I don't think we'll make that progress where people start connecting the dots and start thinking about how do we secure our environment, how do we not dispose waste, that's where they're not supposed to be disposed, how do we ensure that we maximize the water that we have and how do we ensure that our lands, that we plant things, you know so all of those things are important, yes but first of all can we address hunger, can we address poverty? If you ask me I think poverty is like one of the major causes of climate change because a lot of people are having to cut down trees because they need to use it for fire, look at what is happening with the world price, so what you have ultimately done is for some people they can't cook or they can't move around, they need alternatives to bring food to their table so they need now maybe to go and burn wood, they need to do some things you know so those are issues that people are facing currently so once we can address poverty, once we can address food security then when you bring an education to somebody and say listen you need to do something about how you're cutting down these trees, the person can start listening but at this moment when they are looking for food on the table, when they are looking to take their children to school, when they are looking to just find a job you know it's going to be difficult but education is important but the most important thing to do right now is to fix poverty, to fix hunger. All right one of the things that one begins to also wonder about is how climate change companies are helping to fight against climate change in the country? Yes it's important for them you know to do that not only because it's attractive it makes you look attractive to investors, it's also sustainable in the future that we are entering where the rest of the world is talking about it so to come to a point where if people want to look at your books and they'll be checking whether you are sustainable, whether your climate change compliant but then we also have to look at the peculiarities of the environment where they have to play, they're playing in an environment that does seem to not care enough about these things you know and that seems to be rent seeking, that seems to collect from them more than it wants to give back you know so it's going to be difficult for them to balance it even if they make an investment it's like companies, I've seen companies who go about planting trees, they declare okay we want to plant hundreds of 1000 trees and at the end of the day nobody is there to maintain those trees, nobody is there to water them and those projects don't see the light of day so there needs to be first of all a culture that we want to do this and everybody's on board, everybody has a buying of everyone in the country that's a mindset that the environment is important that's a mindset that we want to we want to help nature flower not to destroy it you know you want to have that kind of mindset whatever you tell companies right now and even if they go ahead and implement it to not be effective it's what we're only making effective that everybody has a buying it's not just the companies alone but the government also needs to be seen to be doing the same thing you know we do have ministry of environment one begins to wonder how effective these ministries are yes it is an important question that you ask actually in the past we have seen how some of these ministers are appointed some of them are appointed because they helped to make the election happen and the president just rewarded them by giving them those portfolios so we end up not getting technocrats we end up not getting the right people for these jobs so when they come in they just do whatever it is that they feel like that is what they're supposed to do and they leave you know so we don't make enough progress as we shoot you know what when we start prioritizing the quality team that should be in positions of authority then we start having these discussions properly but at the moment I don't think anything is going to change if if somebody who is a doctor or somebody who studied economics or somebody who studied the one one course somewhere is made the minister of environment you know if you want this to happen then you need to go for look for the professional whose job who has had experience in this in this environment who knows what is all about and who can articulate a vision for it that's the only time you start making progress and it is a no-brainer it is why we see the cpm for instance playing the rule of their Greek minister playing the rule of the minister of finance playing because these ministers most of these ministers come in and they just do nothing they just sit down there collect their salaries or whatever kickbacks that they get you know so once we start prioritizing the quality team that we have in government then we can start making progress well I guess we'll just keep our fingers crossed and see if this new president is going to change the narrative and give us people who know the job as against the people who come and learn on the job as we've seen of late with the last administration the minister of education the minister of interior even the minister of state for whatever Festos had also said that which your copilot was he had no reason to exist in the first place so let's wait and say Frank we want to see change hopefully we have renewed hope we've been given renewed hope agenda so we hope that would use new renewed hope agenda will give us a new Nigeria because that's really what we need we want to see meritocracy enthroned and all this nonsense that we've seen played out would change for good Frank Eliana technology and media news editor at business day has been our guest as we took a look at government policies and how it affects climate change companies in the country thank you so much Frank thank you Marius and thank you for having me all right so it's still the breakfast on plus TV Africa we'll take a short break now and come back with our second hot topic stay with us