Appendix III Thesis Title Approval
4.4 Climate Change Adaptation in Lagos State
The effects of climate change can be destructive such that the people, especially the poor, can find it difficult to cope or live with these effects. Hence, there is a need for adaptation, which is one of the key responses to climate change and its problems. The vulnerability of towns and cities across the world has been established, given their burgeoning populations, industrial capabilities and in many cases geographical locations as coastal spaces (Ayeni, 2017). The need for resilience to climate change makes climate change adaptation an allure in environmental policy circles across the world. The government of Lagos notes the metropolis’ vulnerability to climate change and endeavours to harness policy and programmatic efforts to adapt to the menace. This is because climate change has exacerbated environmental and climatic dynamics in Lagos in recent decades.
There is also the need to ensure that the residents of the communities dotting the 187km long coastline and other areas of the State can live with minimal or no threat to their lives and livelihood.
The State Government has come up with some climate change adaptation policies, projects and programmes. These include the Lagos State Climate Change Adaptation Strategy (LAS-CCAS) of 2012, Lagos State Climate Change Policy (2012-2014), Lagos Resilience Strategy (2020) and the
Lagos State Climate Action Plan (2020-2025). These subnational policies are being operated alongside national climate change adaptation strategies such as the National Adaptation Strategy and Plan of Action on Climate Change for Nigeria (NASPA-CCN) of 2011 and the National Policy on Climate Change. The central aim of these policies and plans of action is to ensure that the impacts of environmental ills wrought by climate change are minimal. The Lagos State Climate Action Plan (2020-2025) being the latest of these action plans on climate change adaptation proposes five adaptation goals. These include “building an effective ecosystem in Lagos; ensuring a flood-proof Lagos; ensuring political flexibility and responsiveness; social inclusion of vulnerable groups; and developing an adaptive and resilient transport network” (Lagos State Government, 2021). These are further broken down into 26 targets to make them measurable, achievable, and evaluable.
Engaging in a comparative analysis of two of the policies and plans of Lagos State on climate change adaptation would offer a clearer view of the direction of the state on the subject. The Lagos State Climate Action Plan (2020-2025) is a massive improvement on the Lagos State Climate Change Policy (2012-2014). The difference lies mainly in the clarity, measurability and evaluability of the former compared to the latter. The Lagos State Climate Change Policy (2012- 2014) is not a policy itemisation on adaptation but also a short-term policy instrument while the Lagos State CAP is a medium-term policy instrument. This shows that Lagos State is beginning to go into anticipatory and planned adaption rather than reaction adaption, which only swings into action after climate and environmental disaster. This situation was noted by USAID (2013) that the adaptation outlook of Lagos is in the early stages. It is however important to note that nothing much has changed between then and the time when the Lagos CAP was being prepared. The two instruments demonstrate the commitment of Lagos State to mainstreaming adaptation policies, plans, and strategies into the heart of development planning of the state.
The climate change response outlook of Lagos State shows that the state is stronger on climate change mitigation than adaptation. This is because, in almost all the policies, plans and strategies proposed by the state, climate change mitigation has been the dominant response to climate change. This is true of the Lagos State Climate Change Action Plan (2020-2025) which shows that despite improvements in climate change conception and formulation in the state, mitigation remains more dominant than adaptation. The near-sole focus of the state on climate change
mitigation rather than adaptation can be linked to the political economy of state development in Nigeria. While Lagos State stands out in the comity of states in Nigeria on climate change response commitment of successive Administrations in the state to ensuring that the state is resilient to climate change, the Nigerian pathology of poor investment in the people which adaptation represents still plagues the state.
Experts’ opinions on the effectiveness of the climate change response of Lagos State brings the position on adaptation into a clearer perspective. Going further, it is instructive to note that the opinions of governmental respondents and non-governmental respondents on the issue of the effectiveness of climate change response in Lagos, which was posed with adaption at the back of the mind differ almost diametrically. Careful consideration of the response of governmental respondents on the subject shows an analysis celebrating the ‘successes of the state in climate change mitigation. One of them opines as follows;
“Yes, in a way, because since about 2008, we started the campaign of tree planting. And then, governments were aggressive. And we declared the 14th of July as a tree planting day, all over the state. And we go to all the local governments and LCDA, and then we plant trees along the road, in a public place. We have LASPARK- the Lagos State Parks and Gardens Agency that is charged with greening: they create recreational parks here and there. Our open spaces are green and we know that green trees or shrubs and glass help you in carbon sequestration, so we try as much as possible to turn it into a green area.
As a success story, we have the school advocacy group that has now turned to environmental peace club, we go to our schools, and we educate our children, try to catch them young because we believe that when you train a child, they are training the whole family because they're able to change the mindset of their parents, the mindset of their uncles, the mindset of people. Quite a lot of things that the state government is doing. And recently, we started talking about converting some of the BRT buses to CNG longer buses and in an attempt to that LASEPA, an agency under us recently converted one of their buses to CNG to tell people that it is possible. We know what that means, when your bus is running on CNG or Compressed natural gas or liquefied natural gas, you are cutting down the emission that ordinarily you get from fossil fuel or diesel. So and the old ministry, the old secretariat government's house is run by an IPP, independent power plants very close to us here that is running on gas. And that is one way of cutting down and we encourage renewables. We encourage the product, the market, we encourage the practitioners, and we encourage people to go so I will say yes. Quite a lot in the industry.”
Source: Interview with LSI A, Jan. 8, 2020, Lagos)
In contrast, while non-governmental respondents did not deny the fact that Lagos State has policies, plans and strategies to combat climate change, they argue that the actions are either not enough or poorly implemented. Below are two non-governmental respondents’ positions on the effectiveness of climate change response in Lagos State.
“Yes, the Nigerian government, which is prominent on climate change in Lagos state, plausibly isn’t matching their policy statements with the right actions in the right direction.” (Interview with LSCS B, January 26, 2020)
“No! Because when we are talking about preparing for climate change, there are proactive measures they are reactive measures. When we are talking about the proactive measure, there's proper waste management, the drains are there, enough awareness. Then, when flooding happens was the clean-up plan? What are we doing to ensure it doesn’t happen again? So, I would say no. Yeah, let me put “no” because you need to have a balance of the proactive and reactive, adaptive measures and mitigation. Balance of both so if you're having one then I don't think you're prepared.”
(Interview with LSCS A, January 26, 2020)
The second non-governmental respondent’s response demonstrates the struggles of Lagos state in climate change adaptation. The precarious situation of the people regarding flooding in the state shows that there is weak adaptation and/or maladaptation in the state. The absence of proactive measures shows that adaptation planning is lacking or weak in the state. When the response is compared with the position of the governmental respondent, it shows that the state still has a long way to go to formulate workable climate change adaptation policies and strategies. The foregoing demonstrates that the huge investment outlay of climate change adaptation is constituting a challenge to the state (Timilsina, 2021). This is because adaptation requires massive investment in the people in form of infrastructure and other adaptation buffers that the people need to live with the dynamics of climate change (International Labour Organisation, 2011).
Climate change adaptation in Lagos State is also controversial. This has to do largely with the efforts of the state government to relocate people from dangerous coastal areas in the state. The reality of this struck the researcher in one of the study locations where participants commented rather emotionally their fears regarding the potential loss of their property and disruption to their livelihoods. Lagos has a history of ejecting people from their communities without adequate provisions for the relocation of residents to new communities. In many cases, no provisions are made for the people to relocate. This situation can be traced from the military days in the
Members of the community were dispersed, with no relocation plans and compensation by the government (Agbola & Jinadu, 1997; Folarin, 2010). This led to loss of lives and livelihoods of the people due to the uncaring attitude of the state government.
Residents of coastal communities are in perpetual fear of the government giving them the Maroko treatment. This is expressed as follows;
“We in this community are afraid because we are hearing that Lagos State Government is planning to come and demolish this community like Makoko.
They say it is an urban renewal project and it will be done by Lagos State Urban Renewal Agency (LASURA). We have sent our representatives to meet with the state government but they denied it. We have people in Alausa, we also have a representative in the House of Assembly from this community, so we are receiving information on their plans. What the plan to do is this. They will demolish all the houses here and build high rise buildings and they will now allocate one flat for each landlord. You see, I am a landlord now but when they demolish my house, they will give me a flat. Mind you, my house is a block of four flats. I can tell you that many landlords have sold their houses and relocated to other places but we all know it is panic-selling because they are selling below the amount they should sell the house. It is not easy for some of us to just and leave because our businesses are here. So you can see our dilemma now.”
Source: LS FGD 5i, January 16, 2020, Lagos
The foregoing corroborates the position that climate change adaptation is controversial. For example, USAID (2013) notes that adaptation in Lagos State has a high potential for conflicts while Adelekan (2021) posits that adaptation efforts through urban renewal led to the forced relocation of residents of coastal communities in Lagos as in the case of the demolition of the abodes of the 2,237 households in East Badia in Apapa Local Government, leading to the displacement of 9,000 people in 2013. There is a pattern of demolishing coastal communities and displacing their residents while giving the same land to the rich. This situation sums up the fears of residents of coastal communities across the state. Climate change adaptation is rather a tool for gentrification for disinheritance in Lagos State.