Climate change Justice Audit, group to ensure protection of Nasarawa Communities

Daily Sun reports that the organisation has an implementation  plan of 5- year project “African Activitists for Climate Justice ( AACJ) in collaboration with  OXFAM with  support  from Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) of the Netherlands and the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA).

Disclosing this yesterday is the  AACJ Project manager in the state, Mr Joseph Ibrahim at a one- day public presentation of Climate Audit Report of Nasarawa State, at Nasarawa Luxury Hotel, Lafia,   the state capital.

Ibrahim stressed that the project would  ensure the protection of communities and build resilience of livelihoods against the worst of climate change impact and environmental degradation .

Ibrahim further noted that the organisation had carried out a baseline study to identify lead communities,  companies and their adaptive capacities to climate change impacts as well as understand government mechanisms and  its response through a climate justice audit.

“This project was inaugurated in Nasarawa State in December, 2021 and we didn’t want to start implementing the project without a baseline survey and getting the needs assessment of communities, businesses and government agencies and Parastatals. He stressed.

” So, we thought it wise to conduct a climate change survey, then we got feedbacks  from communities,  agencies and Parastatals of government.

“We have come out with a local conclusion of the process and decided to call stakeholders to share the report with them so that they can also make inputs before our final report,” he said.

Ibrahim, therefore called on stakeholders to work in synergy and support policies that advance climate justice in the state and country at large.

Presenting the audit report, Dr. Femi Asonibare, said the report identified a variety of policy tools in use to mitigate climate change  including  economic and legislative instruments,  voluntary agreements, and co-operate responsibilities.

Asonibare explained that mitigation and adaptation of climate issues require actions at all levels of community, private, and government and coordination between them.

” Adaptation in particular, requires coordination across different levels of government since many effects of climate change are found at local levels.

“The Ministries’ adaptation actions are still at an early stage and are insufficient to deal with problems that could anse from climate change.

The possible cause for this is the lack of clear instructions to agencies to consider climate change impacts when planning and implementing policies for economy any livelihood support,”

In an interview with Daily Sun shortly after the programme, Chairman, Karu Local Government Area, Hon. James Thomas applauded the organisation for taking bold steps, aimed at attaining climate justice.

The Chairman, however stressed the need for collaboration between relevant stakeholders  to encourage participation in climate action, noting  that  many effects of climate change are found at local levels.

The Karu Local government Boss therefore pledged that  his local government would support the implementation towards the effective implementation of the climate change justices audit plan.