How are Nigerian Universities combating Climate change? Insights from Some Institutions

Universities the world over, are synonymous with teaching, research and community service. This tripartite assignment can prove very beneficial in combating climatic dysfunctionalities. To elucidate, while faculty members can teach students climate conservative practices and sensitize their communities, research clusters domiciled in such institutions can seek to discover more cost effective and efficient mitigative/adaptative activities to combat the raging and raving menace of climate change. Taking into cognizance the severity of climate change and its propensity to lead to whole exterminations of societies and destruction of livelihoods, climate-interventionist activities have become not just imminent but inevitable. Hence, in tandem with this position, the paper examines the role of Nigerian universities in combating climate change in their institutions and host communities. In a bid to actualize this objective, we have critically examined the activities of selected schools who have come up with one initiative or the other as a stop-gap measure for tackling the rampaging menace of climate change. The core objective of this paper therefore is to examine the performance level of these programmes while identifying areas for improvement. The paper is qualitatively driven and draws from secondary sources of data such as book chapters, journal articles, policy briefs, conference articles among others. We observed that paucity of sufficient budgetary allocations to help these institutions achieve their objective is a major challenge to their climate change reduction agenda. Hence, we recommend that special funding be granted to such universities irrespective of their ownership structure.The paper addresses the issue of applied sciences by engendering a paradigm shift from the laboratory to the field through promoting inclusive participation of universities in combating climate change.