Our Climate Reality
Nigerian youth stand at the frontline of a climate crisis they did not create. Representing over 50% of Africa's most populous nation, they are not passive victims awaiting intervention. Rather, they are active agents of change. With a median age of 18.1 years, this generation inherits both the consequences of global inaction and the responsibility to forge climate solutions.
This position statement is grounded in the lived realities of Nigerian youth navigating desertification in the North, coastal erosion in the South, and urban flooding everywhere in between. At COP30, we demand that global climate action finally matches the scale of disruption we face daily.
1. Equitable Climate Finance & Debt Justice
Nigeria's climate financing is dominated by debt rather than grants, adding to a burden that already consumes revenue. In 2024, 69% of government revenue was in debt service while floods displaced over 1.2 million people in the same year. Climate finance should deliver economic, generational, and regional justice for Nigeria, ending debt cycles and ensuring youth inherit opportunities.
Our Demands:
Restructure Nigeria's debt to directly fund climate action through mechanisms aligned with the Bridgetown Initiative, protecting the most vulnerable particularly youth, women, and marginalized communities.
Leverage Nigeria's Green Climate Fund Country Programme and NDCs to secure at least 70% grant-based climate finance through simplified, transparent systems operationalized via the Nigeria Climate Change Fund with dedicated youth and gender-responsive allocations.
Champion community-driven funding like climate bonds and green cooperatives ensuring equitable access for women and youth entrepreneurs who face systemic barriers to capital.
2. Loss & Damage
The 2022 floods displaced over 2 million Nigerians, affecting 64% of households in impacted regions and disrupting livelihoods, education, and essential services. The psychological impact remains systematically undocumented and uncompensated. True climate justice accounts for non-economic losses like trauma, addressing the gendered burdens on women and girls, and restoring young people’s livelihoods.
Our Demands:
Champion a Non-Economic Loss and Damage Protocol using gender-sensitive and youth-responsive assessment methodologies to compensate for lost livelihoods, cultural heritage, education, and mental well-being.
The Loss and Damage framework must compensate for human suffering not just physical infrastructure.
Guarantee 30% of Loss and Damage funding for youth-specific programs co-designed with affected communities, integrated into Nigeria's National Action Plan on Gender and Climate Change.
3. A Just Transition for Oil-Dependent Economies
Nigeria risks economic abandonment as the world transitions away from oil, threatening the Niger Delta and its youth with joblessness and continued environmental degradation. A just transition for oil dependent communities requires dignified jobs, regional equity for polluted communities and sustainable youth livelihoods.
Our Demands:
Developed nations that profited from Nigerian oil must provide concessional finance and technology to build renewable energy industries through Nigeria's Energy Transition Plan and Just Energy Transition Partnership framework.
Establish a National Green Skills Academy across Nigeria to provide free, practical training linked to guaranteed internships and startup support, building a workforce for a sustainable economy.
Ensure communities and informal energy workers become primary owners of the clean energy economy through community energy cooperatives.
4. Food Systems & Climate Security
Climate change is rewriting Nigeria's agricultural calendar. Rains come late or not at all. Pests thrive in warmer temperatures. Desertification pushes herders south, sparking conflicts over shrinking arable land. Meanwhile, 30.6 million Nigerians face acute food insecurity. A just Nigerian food system ensures equitable access to nutrition, empowers the women who produce most of the food, creates opportunities for youth and provides targeted support for all regions.
Our Demands:
Redirect subsidies through the National Agricultural Technology and Innovation Policy to equip smallholder farmers to equip smallholder farmers with the drought-resistant seeds, solar-powered irrigation, and climate-smart training needed to secure Nigeria's food supply.
Provide startup capital through dedicated national financing windows, plus market access and technology.
Invest in community grain banks, cooperative warehouses, and local processing facilities to reduce post-harvest losses, integrated into Nigeria's National Food Security Programme with regional hubs ensuring North-South equity.
5. Climate-Resilient & Inclusive Cities
Nigerian cities are rapidly expanding while sinking under annual floods, crippled by a critical lack of waste management, green spaces, and climate-resilient infrastructure. Building livable cities means guaranteeing clean air and safe transport for all, securing women’s safety and ensuring resilience reaches every community.
Our Demands:
Invest in electric mass transit, dedicated BRT lanes, and safe cycling infrastructure aligned with Nigeria's National Transport and National Urban Development Policies.
Climate finance must fund social housing built with local, adaptive materials and equipped with clean energy and water systems, prioritizing shelter for the most vulnerable.
Transform waste generated into opportunity through recycling and composting plants managed as youth cooperatives with 50% women participation, anchored in Nigeria's National Policy on Solid Waste Management.
6. Adaptation
Nigeria’s communities are on the frontline of the climate crisis, facing intensifying droughts in the north and devastating floods in the south, which threaten food security and cripple local economies. Building a climate resilient Nigeria means moving beyond reactive disaster management to proactive, locally-led adaptation that shields every vulnerable group and ecosystem.
Our Demands:
Direct international climate finance to community-based organizations and local governments to implement the National Adaptation Plan.
Support indigenous early warning systems and climate resilient agricultural practices that are determined by and for the communities that use them.
Integrate the protection and restoration of mangroves, forests and wetlands into national and sub-national development planning.
From Negotiation to Implementation
COP30 must mark the turning point where words become action. For Nigeria, this means direct financial flows and a seat at the table for youth already building a sustainable future. Our demands are concrete proposals grounded in existing policy frameworks and proven global models. We call on global leaders to provide the political will and financial support to scale them, ensuring climate justice translates to economic, social, gender, generational, and regional equity—in practice, not just principle.