Climate experts have called for concerted effort in tackling the crisis arising from global warming it affects everyone regardless of location or economic status. They say action should be taken from the perspective of justice.
Climate change/global warming is believed to be driven by human activities which include the release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere through burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, industrial agriculture, urbanization and others.
According to them, justice demands that “we fight to free the world of all forms of domination and exploitation adding that it should be a struggle for social, economic , ecological and gender justice.
Nnimmo Bassey, a renowned environmental rights activist and director of ecological think tank, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) who stated this at a programme known as school of ecology on climate justice in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom state capital said “we would be living in a state of willful denial if we insist that all in well.’’
Bassey who is a co-recipient of the 2010 Rights Livelihood Award noted that with desertification eating up 11 states in the Northern part of the country , 850 kilometre coastline in the South and with species going extinct, it would be unfair to claim neutrality.
“Ours is to provide a platform for participatory learning, for agreements and disagreements, for debates and for the expression of our deep-seated positions. Our learning must lead to action. Action without application can be dangerous,’’ he said.
According to him, flood has affected 80 percent of Nigeria between July and September 2018 with 141 persons reported dead and 265 others suffering diverse injuries while similar calamities have happened before especially in 2012.
He said it was shocking that no climate action had been taken to address the crisis at the source.
“Climate change determines the way we produce food, our access to water, our health, where we live and the diversity of plants and animal species found around us, ” he said.
He accused fossil fuel companies of promoting climate falsehood and denialism for claiming that there is no viable alternative to current fossil civilization adding that they “build on and subvert social imaginaries hinged on flawed conceptions of what they insist lead to sustainability, justice and community.”
In an interview, Duncan McLaren, a visiting researcher at Linkoping University , Sweden who was one of the resource persons called for urgent actions to cut emissions and to transform our societies so that “we can provide a sustainable life for everyone.”
He said there should be a collective effort in solidarity between people of the global north and the people from the global south and expressed expressed disappointment that actions taken so far were not far reaching enough which he said had led to a rise in temperature of up to 3 three degrees Celsius in the world.
