NESREA, CSOs to partner on climate change, challenges in extractive communities 

Thu, Aug 25, 2022
By editor
4 MIN READ

Environment

THE National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) said it would  partner with OXFAM and Connected Development (CODE) on achieving net zero, climate change  and challenges in oil-bearing communities.

Prof. Aliyu Jauro, Director-General, NESREA said this in Abuja when the Civil Society Organisations paid an advocacy visit to the agency in Abuja .

Jauro said that the agency had a set of regulations targeted at controlling ecosystem challenges like wetland, river banks and lake shores to ensure that whatever was done did not impact on the environment negatively.

He added that there were also  regulations on  coastal and marine area protection, surface and ground water quality control, soil erosion and flood control, among others, to ensure good environment and  tackle climate change.

He stressed the need for companies to abide by the guidelines of NESREA  to curb environmental hazards and for communities to benefit from extractive  resources.

“You  mentioned the National Action Plan as the guiding principle, which talks about how companies do their business  in relationship to the issue of human rights.

“There is what is called the Environmental Impact Assessment  which requires  the incorporation of social components and they are all issues of human rights;  so there is need for companies to abide by these  regulations in whatever they do .

” There is also the corporate social responsibilities guideline,  these are the only ways we can reduce inequality which is very high in West Africa as it is mentioned that the entire wealth of West  Africa is in the hands of one per cent of the population.

“This is because  there is need to have a certain level of equality.

In some developed countries, they found a way of taxing such rich people to bring  equality to the system, so there is  need for Nigeria to try and see how it could reduce the inequality gap.”

Jauro said that the agency would collaborate with the  CSOs to see how it could drive some of its policies and ensure companies abided by the guidelines, adding that  it was the only way to reduce inequality.

Mr Henry Ushie, Project Coordinator,  Fiscal Accountability for Inequality Reduction OXFAM, said that  the CSOs were   advocating for communities and countries to be environment conscious in terms of climate change adaptation and resilience .

Ushie said that there was a new   project  launched  in collaboration with  CODE and OXFAM aimed  to see how climate change  could be mainstreamed into  all conversations and brought to light .

“We want to see how communities can also play their role in keeping their environment clean.

“The government made commitment to the United Nations Climate Change Conference, more commonly referred to as COP26  in 2021 to go net zero by 2060, 10 yeats ahead of the global commitment.

“So we want  to see how agencies like NESREA and NOSDRA  are making concrete effort in terms of policy and practice to  get to that  point where we are able to say ‘yes’, we are net zero.”

He said that CODE’s  Follow the Money initiative to track funds at the grassroots  would  play its role to track such expenditure on whether it was being targeted at reducing climate injustice, or promoting and ensuring the judicious use of the funds.

Mr Hamzat Lawal, Chief Executive of CODE, said that as CSO leaders, it was   important to  explore ways to collaborate with government because governments  served the people and CSOs  served the interests of the people.

Lawal said that CODE was leading a  campaign in collaboration  with OXFAM to   look  at how the Nationa Action Plan (NAP) on Business and  Human Rights would be  implemented.

” We know that in exploration across Nigeria, there have been incidents on human rights; today we are meeting with government regulators  and  investigative agency to call their attention to this.

” Most importantly, it is  to explore how we can collaborate with them to rebuild trust, particularly in  engaging communities where these resources are domiciled.”

Lawal said the advocacy visit was also aimed at engaging the government  on its preparedness  for COP27 in Egypt  in terms of policy  implementation , results, lessons and how Nigeria could  overcome the challenges.(NAN)

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