FG’ll explore all avenues to benefit from Green Climate Fund — Minister

The Federal Government said on Thursday that it would explore all possible avenues to ensure that Nigeria benefitted immensely from the Green Climate Fund (GCF).

The Minister of State for Environment, Mallam Ibrahim Jibril, stated this at a Gala Dinner and Certificates Award Night organised by the African Union’s (AU) Scientific, Technical and Research Commission in Abuja, to mark the end of a three-day Capacity Building Consultative Workshop for AU member states.

The consultative workshop was an avenue to train representatives of African states on how to access the GCF.

According to the minister, accessing the fund will go a long way towards addressing climate change-related issues in the country.

He said that towards that end, the environment ministry was working closely with the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing to generate renewable energy as a way of mitigating the effect of climate change.

He added that it was in a bid to address climate-related issues that Nigeria became the first African country to raise the Sovereign Green Bond in line with the objectives of the Paris Agreement of 2015 to which it is a signatory.

The minister stated that the government would encourage the 36 states of the federation to put beautiful proposals that would stand the test of time, to benefit from the GCF.

He then urged participants and other stakeholders that participated in the consultative workshop to return to their various countries and apply the knowledge and lessons learned during the interactive sessions to help grow the various agencies, parastatals, organisations and academic institutions in their countries to grow.

Highpoint of the evening was the award of certificates of participation to all the key stakeholders, participants and resource persons that were at the workshop.

It was reported that at least 20 African were represented at the workshop.