UN-HABITAT wants existing houses upgraded

UN-HABITAT wants existing houses upgraded

The United Nations-HABITAT has canvassed for the upgrading of existing buildings and the use of improved technologies in new buildings in Nigeria.

The Director, Monitoring and Research Division of UN-Habitat, Prof. Banji Oyeyinka, made the call at the formal launch of the UN global report on human settlements, entitled: ‘Cities and Climate Change’  at the Covenant University, Ota, Ogun state south-west of the nation.

Rural-urban migration

Oyeyinka noted that the high rate of migration from rural areas to the urban cities over the years had been a source of concern to the UN.

According to him, the drift had posed some environmental challenges.

"There is an urgent need for governments across the world to create an urban risk map to enhance the understanding of the impacts, risks and vulnerabilities of climate change and the emission of urban gas areas’’, he said.

Climate change

The UN director said the cities were responsible for the majority of the harmful greenhouse gases.

“With better urban planning and greater citizen participation, we can make our hot cities cool again’’, he said.

Oyeyinka warned that there might be a deadly collision between urbanisation and climate change if actions were not taken by cities of the world to reduce greenhouse gases.

Such needed actions, he added, would also promote more environmentally sustainable and fairer urban development.

“The collision has been and will continue to be fuelled by two human-induced factors. The first being urbanisation and the second being the impact of greenhouse gases that are being unleashed by development and manipulation of the environment. Not only are cities major contributors to climate change, but with ever increasing densities, they will also be the hardest hit when nature strikes”, he posited.

Transportation

Oyeyinka said globally, transportation had also been responsible for about 23 per cent of the total energy-related greenhouse gas emissions and 13 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

“This is a dangerous trend to human existence. There are currently about 1.2 billion passenger vehicles worldwide and by 2050, this figure is projected to reach 2.6 billion, the majority of which will be found in developing countries. Reports have warned that as economies grow, transport activities increase and are expected to continue increase in the decades ahead”, he warned.

He called for national and regional policies that would enhance coordination and streamlining of the actions of the cities, sectors, regions and other parties.

Policies’ implementation

The Chancellor of the university, Mr David Oyedepo, said government must wake up to its responsibility in ensuring the implementation of policies as it related to the report.

“It is a disturbing trend to discover government’s lack of capacity and morality to develop our infrastructure”, he said.

The UN- Habitat and Covenant University had in July signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the report.

NAN/Shakira/Ekata