As the African environment continues to heat up thanks mainly to unregulated extractive activities scattered all over the continent, concerned civil society and community activists are demanding a continental unified position in the demand for climate justice as the world prepares for COP 30 billed for Brazil.
Rising from a one-week conference on climate change impact on the Niger Delta, the third in an annual series powered by Lekeh Development Foundation in partnership with sister environment focused organisations, activists decried the continued assault on the African environment by multi-national corporations without recourse to environmental rights and compensation for losses and damage. They described the situation as a continuation of the slavery of the colonial era.
The conference which, held July 6-12 and drew participants from all the Niger Delta states and personalities from across the country, also had in attendance guests and resource persons from Ghana, Togo, the UK and the US, condemned the obvious lack of commitment and discipline by African leaders responsible for the myriad of problems in the continent.
They also rejected false solutions being paraded by the West, the polluters insisting that such solutions as carbon trading are neocolonialist focused on benefitting the polluters at the detriment of the community people directly impacted by their unwholesome activities.
In the alternative, they called for the cancellation of debts owed by African nations to free them for effective and sustainable development plans against the climate scourge, while charging African leaders to move from victimhood that leaves them in beggarly state, to thinking innovation and technology as a people blessed with abundant resources. The leaders were also urged to address infrastructural deficits in their countries
“Africa has the riches but we go negotiating with a cap in our hands. Africa is under serious assault over extraction and the colonial paradigm continues for as long as we fail to change”.
To effectively address climate change in the region and continent, women as worse impacted by climate change, they added, must be given roles and opportunities while traditional leaders should be empowered with education and financial support to spread the message of climate change reality among their people.
Civil Society activists were also challenged to work with conviction in the drive for environmental justice.
In his keynote address on the second day of the conference, world respected environmental justice advocate, Comrade Nnimmo Bassey disclosed that the Niger Delta is the most deeply polluted delta in the world and Bayelsa State, the most polluted.
He warned that the world has gone beyond warming to global heating and Africa is on fire, stressing that if action is not taken, catastrophe might follow.
According to him, there can be, “no resilient community without restorative justice. We share the planet with other beings and they have the right to be here.
He pointed out the need to build the youth into climate change action plans as he called for accountable leadership which will include restorative justice, environmental justice, ecological justice species justice, etc.
“Another challenge is that climate change is also generational. We have to dream up our desired future, and decide where we are going which, must include leaving the oil in the soil”.
Ghana’s minister of state for Climate Change, Hon. Seidu Issifu in his presentation, called for united concerted action by African leaders in seeking climate change solution measures. He emphatically called on the West to cancel debts by African nations to avoid debt rot
Host of the conference and executive director of Lekeh Development Foundation, Comrade Nbani said the annual conference started from a local youth movement now receiving national and international attention as the climate crisis grows.
“The Niger Delta Climate Change Conference started as a local youth movement. Climate crisis has broken through our doors, destroying our homes, lives, homelands, threatening our rights”.
He said the conference with the theme, “Building A Resilient Future,” was a collective mission to get the voices, concerns of the people on board climate solutions, noting that, “Climate responses without the people at the center, indigenous knowledge, will not be complete… and the boys can no longer be ignored.”
He said the one week event that kicked off with a rally against environmental injustice featured presentations from different climate change angles include talks on organizing for result, a Leaday presentation on campaigns for compensation for losses and damages in the Niger Delta by multinationals, human and business rights, climate change and Niger Delta women, etc. Over 350 persons attended the conference.
