The Minister of State for Environment, Sharon Ikeazor, recently called for the speedy passage of the Climate Change Bill into law.
Speaking with PREMIUM TIMES, the activists therefore called for the passage of the Nigerian Climate Change Bill to foster Nigeria’s climate actions.
The Minister of State for Environment, Sharon Ikeazor, recently called for the speedy passage of the Climate Change Bill into law. She made this call at the meeting of the National Council on Environment which was held from April 7 to 9. Speaking at the opening of the event, she said the passing of the bill into law is “necessary so as to have a legal instrument that would address the myriads of climate change actions and challenges in the country.”
The Climate Change Bill, which she noted has passed second reading on the floor of the House, seeks to provide a legal framework for mainstreaming climate change responses and actions into government policy formulation and implementation. An earlier version of the bill was initially sent to President Muhammadu Buhari but was rejected in 2019.
Speaking on the importance of this bill, Olumide Idowu, Co-founder of the International Climate Change Development Initiative, said the “bill is supposed to guide our process, it is supposed to guide why we need to be talking about net-zero emissions.”
He further argued that the delay in the passage of the bill has effects on Nigerian society and the effort to tackle climate change. According to him, “a lot of activities are done in a way whereby people don’t know what is guiding them. People just do anything the way they do.”
If the bill is passed into law, he said, activities of people and businesses will be checked to avoid damaging impacts on the environment.
“In our environment now, when an oil company violates rules, what happens? Nothing really happens. That’s why it [the bill] is very important.”
He said without the passage of the bill into law “we will continue to put profit over people. Then the people in the grassroot will be suffering…For me I just felt that it is overdue, it is taking too long for us to have the climate change bill” passed into law.
