Time to take climate change seriously

The adverse effects of climate change on health, agriculture, economy cannot be over emphasised. Therefore, those in charge of managing the environment must take serious steps to tackle the issue. The issue of awareness and education campaign should be taken more seriously. Relevant agencies should set up climate change clubs in primary and secondary schools, […]

The adverse effects of climate change on health, agriculture, economy cannot be over emphasised. Therefore, those in charge of managing the environment must take serious steps to tackle the issue. The issue of awareness and education campaign should be taken more seriously. Relevant agencies should set up climate change clubs in primary and secondary schools, engage in extensive radio and television jingles on climate change, use local and rural community leaders to educate their subjects and also use religious leaders to sensitise followers. The policy focus here should be to make the  campaigns and education on climate change sustainable. It should not be a one week, one month or one year campaign. Emphasis should be laid on setting the framework that can see the campaign last for decades and then be reviewed from time to time as the need arises. The Ministry of Environment should partner the Ministry of Education so that climate change clubs can be set up in schools. The Ministry of Environment should also partner the Ministry of Agriculture so that afforestation and reforestation campaigns can be carried out to boost agricultural production and simultaneously fight climate change. The partnerships should be extended to civil society organisations and other non state actors to ensure that everybody is carried along.

The issue of clean cook stoves should be taken more seriously. Majority of women in rural areas who cook with firewood and other ecosystem-unfriendly ways usually run risks of developing eye, respiratory tract and other health challenges in the long run. This is aside the challenges of climate change which the traditional firewood system presents. The financial cost of cooking with these clean-cook stoves is lower than the financial cost of cooking with the conventional kerosene stoves, meaning that the project will also help families to save cost in the long run. These ecofriendly clean-cook stoves will play a huge role in fighting climate change as one can only imagine the difference between it and massive ecosystem-unfriendly cooking by numerous rural women across the 36 states and Federal Capital Territory (FCT). In developed countries, automobile companies whose products pollute the environment are compelled to recall such products from the market even though they have already been sold to  consumers. The companies also pay fines for manufacturing products that hurt the environment. Nigeria has, over the years, been a dumping ground for substandard products that hugely pollute the environment with green house gases which speed up climate change; hence the need for the Ministry of Environment and other regulatory bodies to sit up.

Martins Eke is the Programme Officer at the Center For Social Justice and he wrote from Abuja