…Why children should be at forefront of climate change debate
By Dele Ogbodo
The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) Representative for North, Central and West Africa sub-region, Dr. Bernard Gomez, has stated that because of the emerging vulnerabilities spurred for potential for warming of the atmosphere, Nigeria and other countries across the globe should expect more weather and climate shocks.
Speaking at the sideline of the World Meteorological Day in Abuja, Nigeria recently, with our Reporter, Gomez, said: On current weather events, weather there are certainly going to changes and as the trend of Green-House-Gas (GHG) that we have now, there is potential for greater warming of the atmosphere and when there is warming then shocks increase and so we are expecting more shocks in 2024.
Asked to speak on the emerging climatic and weather phenomena, he continued, adding: “As you know 2023 was the hottest year since records began in the world and that has been the trend for the past 10 years.
“In fact, 2023 was just capping what was there in 2022, 2021 and since 2015, we have seen a significant increase in warming and that just keep increasing such that it peaked last year. We are not even sure whether this year it will not even be worse.
“Like I said in my statement that I presented at the celebration, I have been around in Nigeria in the past 10 years specifically in Abuja. This year, the amount of heat that I have experienced, I have never experienced it before. Never.”
On what developing countries should expect in the months and years to come, he said: “First and foremost to do a forecast we need a community, everybody generate observations and those observations are what are used by forecasters.
“To predict what is going to happen and so for a communities in North, Central and West Africa, we need more commitment to generate more observations and secondly we also need our forecasters to be supported and they need to be trained so that they can bring out good and accurate forecast that are fit for purpose so that everybody will listen and implement actions to save their lives and livelihood.
“That is extremely important and of course we are not alone in this, the rest of the world is grappling with climate change and extreme weather events and we are also learning from others.
But we learn and implement as per our environment and for instance we are lucky that we are not in the tropical cyclone belt where you have hurricane and other things but of course we also have our issues like flood, heat waves which are very common in this part of this part of the world.
On the design an innovative awareness template for upcoming generations and children on climate change matters, he said that is being at the WMO level.
According to the world acclaimed Meteorologist, the debate on climate change is a very interesting one, adding that humanity met and found planet that was well balanced but because of industrialization, man or human beings interference and polluting the atmosphere, we have now found ourselves in a situation where the climate is changing and that change is what is causing all of these shocks and vulnerabilities.
He said: “Children need to know all of these things because as feature actors and leaders they need to be prepared in good for future times, they also need to raise their voices and like I told them in the hall they need to start talking to their parents to vote for people who care for the climate matters and issues.
The WMO representative acknowledged that the debate is on but nobody and even the politicians are not listening.
He said: “We talked about reduction of GHG, they don’t listen because all they care is about money and money at the detriment of the climate. First of all children need to know and adapt and also to start raising their voices that you guys had a planet that was good for you but you are destroying it for us, which is not good or fair for us.
