Climate change directly affects our communities, health, and livelihoods. Yet, media coverage often prioritises politics and business over climate-related stories, leaving crucial environmental news underreported.
Climate Watch seeks to bridge this information gap, ensuring that important climate change stories and mitigation efforts never slip under your radar.
Here is a round-up of last week’s climate stories:
- The Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF) has pledged its commitment to the country’s environmental conservation and sustainability. Izoma Asiodu, the NCF president of board of trustees (BOT), made the pledge on October 3 at the foundation’s 35th annual general meeting held in Lagos. Asiodu urged the national executive council (NEC) of the foundation to work towards establishing offices in all states of the federation. Asiodu said the presence of the NCF at the subnational level would promote advocacy for nature conservation and sustainability at the grassroots. He said solving environmental problems requires robust action and response at the local and global levels, noting that conservation issues transcend borders. Asiodu said the foundation has planted 285,000 trees through its green recovery Nigeria (GRN) programme. He noted that the GRN programme is a flagship project of the NCF aimed at recovering and restoring Nigeria’s forest cover from the current seven percent to 25 percent by 2047.
- Last week, Hurricane Helene rocked the United States, leading to the death of at least 116 people and causing power outages in more than two million households across the country. According to the BBC, Helene is the most powerful hurricane on record to hit Florida. The storm brought catastrophic flooding, tornado damage, collapsed trees, and closed roads in six states. At least 42 people have been reported dead in North Carolina, 29 in South Carolina, 25 in Georgia, 15 in Florida, two in Tennessee and one in Virginia. Buncombe County in Florida appeared to be the most severely affected area, with at least 30 fatalities reported there. Find out more here.
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The Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) has partnered with Husk Power Systems (Husk), a clean energy company, to introduce solar power from interconnected mini-grids (IMGs) into its network. IMGs are linked to a distribution network operator’s infrastructure. Husk, in a statement, said the partnership, carried out alongside Duduguru community in Nasarawa state, aims to provide sustainable, affordable and reliable energy to peri-urban commercial and residential customers. The firm added that solar energy would be injected into the AEDC service network to enhance service, increase revenue, reduce technical losses, and cut carbon emissions. Read more here.