NGO urges incoming govt to tackle climate crisis
The Society for Planet and Prosperity (SPP), an Abuja based NGO, has urged the incoming government to tackle climate crisis with top 11 Net Zero and Economic Development Measures.
The President, Society for Planet and Prosperity (SPP),Prof. Chukwumerije Okereke, said this at a news briefing on Monday in Abuja.
He said that the top 11 measures included on- and Off-grid generation of renewable electricity, elimination of diesel and gasoline generators by 2030 and the planting of 300 million trees by 2030.
“End gas flaring by 2030, reduce wood cooking and introduce clean cooking to 30 million households, construction of 300,000 green homes annually for five years and shift to Bus Rapid Transport with enforcement of emission standards.
“Transition to properly designed engineered landfill with state-of-the-art gas collection, enhanced irrigation powered by renewable energy.
“Increase energy efficiency by reducing transmission losses, and restoration of landscape scale and recharge of Lake Chad Basin,” Okereke said.
He noted that the project analysed decisions and actions that, if taken in the next five years, would underpin a socio-economic transformation to enable Nigeria meet the government’s 2060 net-zero objective announced at COP26 in Glasgow.
“The context of the project with regards to benefits and successful implementation of each measure were assessed based on four criteria:
“Economic diversification, (youth) job creation and poverty reduction; security, social safeguards, and gender equality and food security, public and environmental health.
“As well as sustainable and affordable power and transport to justify the diversity and sustainability of the measures,” the President assured.
The Chief Executive Officer of GCA Capital Partners, Mr Obi Ugochuku, said that these 11 measures were not just to address the climate change but also to diversify the economy and create economic growth and jobs.
“The measures will generate 21 million jobs.
“If the government is able to mobilise and tackle these measures they will indirectly begin to impact the creation of some of these 21 million jobs.
He recalled that President Muhammadu Buhari just signed an amendment to the constitution introducing item 14.
According to him the amendment allows domestic generation of energy within that community rather than having to send it to the grid.
He described the sending of energy to the grid as an “inefficient way of generating and distributing electricity”.
“These measures overlap and also has the ability to generate investment and trade opportunities within the economy,” Ugochuku assured.
Executive Director SPP, Mr Oghenemere Orugbo, also said these 11 measures have been tailored and drafted according to Nigeria’s national circumstances.
He expressed optimism that the incoming government would work with the measures, outlined, hence “it is everyone’s responsibility to deal climate change”.
SPP, GCA Capital Partners and Climate Advisers Network (Berlin) worked together and distilled 11 key measures out of a long list of 35 measures.
