On October 31, 2022, staff of the Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA) embarked on a high-level stakeholder engagement meeting with key government agencies in Nigeria where they discussed findings, and demanded the implementation of recommendations from CAPPA’s latest reports on the impacts of climate change in frontline communities, and status of climate commitments in African countries.[spacer height=”25px”]
Receiving CAPPA’s team warmly, Ms. Theresa Maduekwe, Overseeing Director, Public Enlightenment & Mass Mobilization, National Orientation Agency (NOA) thanked CAPPA for undertaking such important research and advocacy necessary to build climate resilience in impacted communities.[spacer height=”25px”]
In between anecdotes and discussion of findings from the reports, Akinbode Oluwafemi, Executive Director, CAPPA, expressed concerns about the critical role of the National Orientation Agency in empowering local communities with information about climate change in order to strengthen existing adaptation and mitigation responses. At the end of the meeting, the Overseeing Director of Public Enlightenment and Mass Mobilization promised to work with CAPPA to empower communities with the requisite knowledge to cope with the effects of climate change.[spacer height=”25px”]
At Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Environment, the team from CAPPA met with Victoria Pwol, the Deputy Director, GHG inventory Division, Department of Climate Change. At the beginning of the engagement, Ms. Victoria noted that one of Nigeria’s topmost priorities as regards climate change is to come up with strong adaptation and mitigation responses rooted in local contexts. She also observed that the research undertaken by CAPPA was quite important to evaluate the commitments of state actors and other relevant stakeholders to fulfilling pledges made at global climate discussion arenas, implementing climate actions and Nationally Determined Contributions.[spacer height=”25px”]
While findings from CAPPA’s research show that Nigeria is keen on bolstering its responses to climate change, it also observed that there is still room for improving the country’s aspirations to cut down carbon emissions and transit to more sustainable and cleaner energy sources.[spacer height=”25px”]
For Nigeria to advance its climate ambitions, it must leverage green economic opportunities to attract investments in its renewable energy sector – frame a just transition in an African context that offers inclusivity for everyone and at the same time acknowledges the unique differences of groups and cultures – drop false solution schemes – empower local communities with education on climate change – build capacity to secure funding support to finance its climate ambitions amongst other recommendations noted in CAPPA’s research.[spacer height=”25px”]
