With the intensification of climate impacts by way of foods, droughts, and wildfires around the world, stakeholders at the School of Ecology on Propelling the Energy Transition has stated that what will bring about a respite is a global and organized citizens action in the line of what is already emerging.
Speaking on overcoming Climate Action Inertia during training by the school management recently in Bayelsa, HOMEF Director, Dr. Nnimmo Bassey, said it would be expected that global emergency measures would be taken to tackle the climate crisis, adding that the heart of the Paris Agreement, is failing to cut emissions at levels necessary to tackle the unfolding global heating just as was foreseen by critical analysts, saying politicians willfully avoid climate action.
Bassey said the unholy wedlock between fossil fuel industries and governments has locked societies on the fossil pathway and made it seem like dependence on dirty energy is both inevitable and unavoidable.
According to him, “Nigeria and other African countries, top political leaders are insisting that moving away from fossil fuels will spell economic doom, intensive energy deficits and a reign of poverty. It is not hard to see how false these arguments are.
“The average Nigerian has been plunged into excruciating poverty and massive energy deficit despite 64 years of fossil fuel extraction and exports. Politicians cannot convince anyone that two more decades of destructive extraction and pollution would suddenly turn the horrible indices around.
“This School of Ecology on Propelling the Energy Transition aims to achieve what the name says, force change from bad or dirty to good or renewable energy. With our partners in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa, we believe that there are lessons that can be learned from available wisdom and applied to fundamentally tip the scales away from polluting and harmful activities.
“We are actively learning from indigenous wisdom which largely encourage living within planetary limits and in harmony with Nature. Our youths can pick up the wisdom of the elders, process and adapt them in innovative ways to bring about the needed change.
“The indications from multilateral actions prompted by the Paris Agreement of the UNFCCC are tilting more towards the perpetuation of polluting activities and then embarking on carbon removal from the atmosphere, or at pollution sources to buy time by delaying climate action while offloading the impacts on the youths and children.
“This school denounces the intergenerational crimes connected to insistence on energy firms that harm humanity and the Planet. You have heard of ongoing moves towards divestment which the Niger Delta Convergence Manifesto characterizes as criminal flight, a move to profit from avoiding responsibilities for current and historical ecocide. Still in Africa, there is a push for exploitation of oil in the Okavango Basin in Namibia/Botswana, and insistence on drilling in Virunga (DRC) and in the Saloum Delta in Sénégal.
