Multilevel Climate Action: Importance of Subnational Climate Policies and Action Plans

Photo Credit: The Carbon Brief: Nigeria

On July 25, 2024, key stakeholders on climate change in Nigeria, ranging from State Governors, Ministers, Heads of Climate Change Councils and Departments, Environment and Climate Change Commissioners, members of the academia, Civil Society, community and youth groups, women and persons living with disabilities, the media, etcetera, will converge at Abuja Sheraton to share ideas. This assortment of stakeholders will not be gathering for round-the-table abstract conversations on climate change which has often been criticized by many as the bane of climate action in Africa, but to review and evaluate, for the first time, the nature of climate change governance in Nigeria’s subnational during the launch of a Subnational Climate Governance report.

The project launch, which is a culmination of subnational climate governance ranking project implemented by the Society for Planet and Prosperity (SPP) in collaboration with the Department of Climate Change, Federal Ministry of Environment, Nigeria, will unveil top performers in climate action amongst Nigeria’s 36 States; identify key climate change governance criteria; highlight where each State government is doing well and where more work needs to be done; and ultimately provide key elements of an effective climate change governance system for Nigeria’s subnational. This is critical to boosting climate action in the country, meeting the country’s Nationally Determined Contributions, address salient developmental issues, and ultimately drive towards Nigeria’s 2060 net zero ambitions whuch is hinged on green growth.

As a federating State, Nigeria’s governance system is structured such that efforts from the subnational must combine and feed into federal efforts, for a holistic goal. It follows then that with climate change being mostly felt at the subnational, genuine efforts at addressing climate impacts must include strategic and well-intentioned subnational actions which feed into national and international goals. 

In essence, with differing impacts of climate change in the constituent 36 States and 774 Local Government Areas (LGAs) which make up Nigeria’s subnational, States and LGAs are better positioned to identify necessary actions which they must take to address climate change within their geographical locations. These actions which should be adaptive in nature can then be complemented by mitigation actions which will further feed into national greenhouse gases emissions reduction plans in order to forestall future climate change impacts. 

One key way of doing this is through the development and implementation of climate change policies and action plans. According to the ranking report which will be launched on July 25, 2024: 

Addressing climate change demands having a clear set of policy and action plan. Policies set the strategic goals and direction for government while action plans provide details on how and when, actions will be completed, who is responsible for the action, and how success will be measured.

The above clearly explains the important role of policies and actions plans in engendering multilevel climate action which we have established is critical for a country like Nigeria. Accordingly, subnational climate change policies and action plans do the following: 

• state in explicit terms what the goals are
• identify strategic steps that must be taken to achieve the goals 
• provide frameworks for the integration of global and national goals into achievable local actions
• provide financial models for funding climate actions and by extension sustainable green growth
• provide linkages between climate action to the sustainable development of the subnational 
• provide platforms for community-level awareness campaign, education, and action
• etc. 

With an estimated population of 230 million people inhabiting 923,769 square kilometres, it is impossible to address Nigeria’s climate change challenges from a single central government. This is where the multilevel option of aggregated subnational climate change action becomes imperative. Indeed, the gap between federal-level climate action and subnational climate action hugely impacts on Nigeria’s efforts at addressing climate change. While there are several policies at the federal level, the country does not ultimately feel the impacts of these policies due to the disconnect between the national and the subnational. This failure at holistic action is a nagging problem which underscores the importance of subnational action complementing national ones.

Yet, despite this importance of subnational climate change policies and action plans, the results of the project by SPP and DCC which is being published under the title Climate Governance Performance Ranking at the Subnational Level in Nigeria reveals a gap in subnational climate change policies and action plans amongst Nigeria States. This is unacceptable and must be addressed. 

Leveraging on State-level polices and action plans, Nigeria’s subnational can effectively address climate change from the community-level up. This cannot be overemphasized. None of Nigeria’s national climate change goals can be attained without corresponding efforts and actions by the States and Local Governments. It is therefore imperative that serious attention must be paid to subnational climate change governance especially the important roles of climate change policies and action plans towards the attainment of the short and long term climate change goals and sustainable development aspirations of the country. 

Thankfully, the SPP and DCC project is establishing an annual evaluation metrics aimed at bolstering subnational actions for the good of the country.