Tracking Public Financing of Adaptation Projects for Developing Economies Using a Climate Budget Tagging Framework for Nigeria

Introduction

For developing economies, adaptation to climate change challenges is now recognized as a key factor in determining the future outcomes of climate change impacts and mitigation strategies (Lobell, 2008). The literature on the challenges of climate change reveals that developing countries are more susceptible to risks arising from climate change. The reasons put forward are that these countries do not have the adaptive capacity to limit these risks (Moser & Ekstrom, 2010), and have economies that tend to depend greatly on climate change sensitive sectors (Lim, et al., 2004). Thus, a majority of the literature for developing economies focus on providing evidence based research on the socio – economic and political factors that limit adaptation strategies while controlling for the idiosyncrasies of each developing country.

In defining climate change adaptation, one must recognize that adaptation, as a concept is not strictly exclusive to issues bordering on climate change. A conventional working definition by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) defines adaptation as, “the adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities” (Lobell, 2014). Moser and Ekstrom (2010) defined adaptation to include changes in the social – ecological system to anticipated and actual impacts of climate change, with these changes ranging from short term coping mechanisms to long term structural transformations. From both definitions, climate change adaptation implicitly implies substantive changes in consumption and production processes, which may have significant welfare implications and require deliberate involvement in planning for expected outcomes, scope and scale of adaptation strategies.

Therefore, in managing the accompanying risks of climate change, policymakers, prior to the first decade of the 21^st century, focused mainly on strategies aimed at mitigation rather than adaptation (New et al., 2011). The emphasis then, was to reduce the potential negative size of climate change effects on the social – ecological system (Stafford et al., 2011). However, climate change challenges are time bounded. While the effects of climate change occur in the future – long term, the time bounds of mitigation strategies are often linked with the office term limits of decision makers and public servants – mostly four years and in the short term. Consequently, this time lag ensures that current mitigation strategies may not prevent the occurrence of future climate change challenges (Adger 2006). This necessitates the focus of climate change adaptation strategies.

There is adequate evidence on the negative impacts of climate change in Nigeria. NIMET (2008) noted significant weather related disasters with the expectation of a continued trend. Also observed is the high predisposition of Nigeria’s natural and agricultural systems to climate change, with recorded incidence of flood and draught in the past four decades. To effectively respond to these challenges, the Nigerian government developed the National Adaptation Strategy and Plan of Action on Climate Change (NASPA – CCN) in 2011. This plan is designed as an integrated component of sustainable development, with the goal of reducing climate change vulnerabilities and impacts; improving adaptive capacities; leveraging new opportunities and facilitating stakeholder’s collaboration. Key in achieving these objectives is the funding responsibility of the Federal Government of Nigeria, as mandated in the NASPA – CCN. Effective implementation of the policy overtime is expected to significantly tackle the already existing challenges of climate change, while adequately preparing the social – ecology system for future challenges.