Stakeholders want climate change commission

Environment stakeholders have urged the Federal Government to create a holistic institutional framework: either a commission or an agency, for implementation of climate change in the country. They also emphasised on review and update of some environmental laws that were obsolete and for more awareness creation on the effects of land degradation and other environmental […]

Environment stakeholders have urged the Federal Government to create a holistic institutional framework: either a commission or an agency, for implementation of climate change in the country.

They also emphasised on review and update of some environmental laws that were obsolete and for more awareness creation on the effects of land degradation and other environmental challenges.

They made the call at the end of a one-day stakeholders meeting with Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) tagged “Environment in an Era of Change” organised by the environment ministry, in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). 

Speaking at the event, the Minister of State for Environment, Ibrahim Usman Jibril, said a key component of improving environmental governance had been the need to improve participation in the planning and implementation of government policies and programmes.

He said the CSOs could play an important role in enhancing transparency and good governance in the country, adding that enabling the constructive participation of the civil society in local and global environmental governance was an important task for policy makers concerned with the effectiveness of environmental governance.

Earlier, the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Dr. Shehu Ahmed, said that the meeting was coming at a time when the Nigerian economy needed to be diversified in order to improve Gross Domestic Product (GDP) through environmental development initiatives.