In the face of the current heatwave across the country, some stakeholders have challenged Nigerians to take measures towards reducing methane emissions in the environment.
The stakeholders spoke yesterday in Port Harcourt at a one-day roundtable discussion on methane abatement in Nigeria, which was organised by the Environmental Centre for Oil Spills and Gas Flaring (ECOSGF) and the African Initiative for Transparency, Accountability and Responsible Leadership (AfriTal).
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One of the stakeholders, AfriTal executive director, Dr Brown Ogbeifun, described methane as a major contributor to the current heatwave in the country.
Ogbeifun said, “Methane is a major contributor to the current heatwave in the country. This is because methane is 80 per cent more potent in trapping heat and carbon dioxide. What that means is that carbon dioxide, for instance, can stay in the atmosphere for 100 years, but methane stays in the atmosphere for about 12 years.
“What that means, therefore, is that when it traps the heat, getting it released until it disperses, of course, is going to increase the wave of heat. It is going to increase the wave of temperatures, and that is why it is said that methane on its own causes about 40 percent of global heat related issues within the environment.
“I am sure that every Nigerian today sleeps and wakes up with heat. That should be of concern to everybody. It was not like that in the past. Some stakeholders have started to look at why this is now the case and started to pay attention to climate change as something that is real or more real than what people have projected. People now see that the destruction of the ecosystem is beginning to catch up with human beings.
“We need therefore to take control in terms of advocacy and in terms of trying as much as possible to manage our waste well as a way of reducing the short-term methane emissions within the atmosphere.”
Also, the South-South Zonal director of the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA), Nosa Aigbedion, said methane can be a harmful gas at an elevated level.
Aigbedion said: “Methane abatement is one that is of high concern to everyone. Methane is not a harmful gas at low levels, but at an elevated level, it becomes a thing of concern to everyone because of its ability to suppress oxygen and reduce what we take in as our daily life breath, which is oxygen.
“So, for that reason, there is a need for us to abate or curtail methane production and reduce its emission into the atmosphere. That is the crux of this discussion. By reducing anthropogenic (human) activities that lead to methane production, we need to ensure that the waste management process does not produce methane.
“We also need to ensure that we reduce indiscriminate dumping of waste at our dump sites. This is because sometimes methane production is very natural, through the decomposition of organic materials,” he said.