Addressing climate change through environmental assessment tools in planning processes: international practices and perspectives for Niger

Conclusions

Nowadays, incorporating CC considerations in Environmental Assessment is largely recognised as a way for determining whether PPP are consistent with legal framework CC policies and international commitments and initiatives to manage GHG emissions but also a mean to assist proponents in using best practices that adapt to possible CC impacts, such as changes in the frequency or intensity of extreme weather events, increases in mean temperatures or altered precipitation patterns and amounts. This paper

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discussed on how CC issues are addressed worldwide through environmental impacts assessment (EIA) and strategic environmental assessment (SEA) in planning processes with a focus on the European Union legislations in order to identify perspectives for Niger. It also compared the current EIA legislation in EU and Niger to identify differences, and similarities related to CC mainstreaming in EIA in order to learn lessons and to propose some ways of improvement. The assessment of the two legislations revealed that while the EU Directive made provisions about the assessment of the impacts of the projects on CC as well as the vulnerability of the projects to CC, the Niger's EIA procedure follows the traditional approach of undertaking EIAs, which only focuses on the assessment of the impacts of proposed projects or activity on the environment. Moreover, CC mainstreaming is not sufficiently considered in the SEA Directive as the directive does not provide a well-established methodology and specific guidance for determining CC impacts and Niger EA legislation does not have any provision about SEA procedure.

It emerged from this study the need for an establishment of clear defined legal provision on SEA incorporating CC and a revision of Ordonnance 97-001 of 10 January 1997 on the institutionalisation of environmental impact assessments and its implementing decrees 2000-397 and 2000-398 to not only incorporate CC in the EIA procedure but also clarifying the scope of the EIA, categorising projects according to their scope and nature, improving the coordination mechanism of the EIA procedure, public participation and financing of environmental monitoring.

Recommendations

The following recommendations are proposed to the ministry in charge of the environment of Niger.

1. Update the EIA legislation which shall provide clearly defined criteria and checklists for screening and scoping environmental impacts to ensure identification of the significant CC impacts on the proposed project or activity in line with the other national legislations on CC.

2. As mainstreaming CC in EIA procedure is a new concept for many practitioners, establishment of clear criteria governing the qualification, skills, knowledge and experience which must be possessed by persons conducting EIA and government experts who review and assess EIAs procedure and reports. This approach may be used to ensure that persons conducting EIAs and assessing CC impacts possess the requisite qualification, skills, knowledge and experience on CC and adaptation policies and measures.

3. Elaborate and submit to government a new SEA bill taking into account CC and its implementing decrees regarding the administrative procedure and types of plans and programs subject to SEA.

4. Provide a clear mechanism of public participation in addressing CC and its effects and developing adequate responses in EIA and SEA procedures as required by UNFCCC (Article 6 (a) (iii)).

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ACTION PLAN FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE RECOMMENDATIONS

For the above-mentioned recommendations to be effective, it is important to define the different stakeholders and their responsibilities for the implementation of the actions. The proponent of the project for the revision of Ordonnance 97-001 on EIA and its implementing decrees and the proposal of a new draft bill on Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) taking into account the CC dimension, will be the ministry in charge of the environment which has under its responsibility the Bureau of Environmental Evaluation and Impact Assessment (BEEIA):

However, there are also other key stakeholders such as the General Directorate of Environment and Sustainable Development (DGEDD), the National Council of Environment for Sustainable Development (CNEDD), other sectorial ministries, the Technical Committee for Verification and Evaluation of Texts (COTEVET) of the General Secretariat of the Government, parliamentarians members of the Environment and Rural Development Commission and civil society (NGOs and Consultancy firms) working in the field of environment and environmental assessment.

It is also important to recall that the review and drafting of legislative and regulatory texts require the involvement of experts in this field, in particular environmental assessment experts and jurists, and is mainly conditioned by the availability of the necessary financial resources to achieve the assigned objectives. Therefore, the recruitment of a consultant for the revision and elaboration of these texts is essential. With regard to financial resources, the State's budget and other partners of the ministry in charge of environment are the potential sources of funding for this project.

Roles and responsibilities of stakeholders

1. Bureau of Environmental Evaluation and Impact Assessment (BEEIA)

The BEEIA, which will serve as the institutional anchorage of the initiative, in collaboration with the DGEDD and the CNEDD will be responsible for the elaboration of the terms of references for the study, the recruitment of the consultant and follow-up of all actions in order to achieve the implementation of these recommendations.

2. Sectorial Ministries and Civil Society

Sectorial ministries and civil society will be involved in data collection for inputs, drafting of texts and also during pre-validation of elaborated texts by the consultant at a workshop to be organized for the occasion.

3. Technical Committee for Verification and Evaluation of Texts (COTEVET)

This committee housed in the General Secretariat of the Government has an important role to play in this project because it is responsible for verifying and evaluating the conformity of all bills or decrees with the constitution and other laws of the Republic before passing them to the government for adoption. In this

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project, they will be sensitised about the need to integrate the climate dimension into the environmental assessment tools and the deficiencies hitherto found in the implementation of the existing texts.

4. Members of the Environment and Rural Development Commission

These parliamentarians will be sensitized on the ins and outs of these draft texts and the integration of the CC dimension in the environmental assessment tools so that they defend and facilitate their adoption by the National Assembly.

The Different Actions to be carried out:

The table 2 below gives details of the actions to be taken, the responsibilities of the stakeholders for the implementation and the risks.

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Table 2: Actions to be carried out for the Implementation of the Recommendations

Actions	Responsables of actions	Risks
1. Elaboration draft texts by the consultant	Consultant	- Administrative slowness - lack of interest of the targeted actors -lack of financial resources to carry out the actions -mismatched schedule with the parliamentarians agenda		2. Two-day pooling workshop to collect comments on draft texts
BEEIA/DGEDD/CNEDD
Consultant
BEEIA/DGEDD/CNEDD
BEEIA/DGEDD/CNEDD
BEEIA/DGEDD/CNEDD

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