Abia Moves To Tackle Climate Change, Establishes Climate Change Department

0

OWERRI – Conscious of climate change as both an Environmental and Development Challenge, the Abia State government has es­tablished a dedicated Climate Change Department within her ministry of Environment, just as climate Vulnerability Assess­ments had been conducted across all the 17 council areas of the state to establish scientific base­line data for climate planning.

This is even as Climate Com­munity Assets Assessments had equally been undertaken across all the Local Government Areas in the state.

An environmental manage­ment expert and Senior Special Assistant (Public Affairs) to Abia State governor – Dr. Ebere Uzouk­wa Uzoukwa, disclosed this in a lecture entitled ‘Climate-Smart Urbanization And Environmen­tal Governance: The Abia Devel­opment model for Building Re­silient And Sustainable Cities In Africa’, which he delivered at the 2026 World Environmental Day Celebration held at the Imo State University, Owerri, and which had the theme ‘Urbanisation and Climate Change: Building Resilient Cities for a Sustainable Future’.

Uzoukwa said that in addi­tion, Abia State had developed a 107 page climate Change In­vestors Readiness Document designed to position the State competitively for climate financ­ing opportunities and green in­vestment partnerships.

The state, he said, had strengthened institutional cli­mate governance by establishing climate desk officers across Min­istries Departments, Agencies and Local Government Areas.

Abia also contributed green­house gas data to Nigeria’s Bi­ennial transparency Reporting framework while participating actively in national climate plan­ning mechanisms.