• Main News
  • About Us
  • Contact
Premium Times Opinion
Monday, August 8, 2022
  • Home
  • Democracy and Governance
    • Bámidélé Upfront
    • Jibrin Ibrahim
    • Okey Ndibe
  • Economy
    • Ifeanyi Uddin
  • Issues of the Day
    • Adeolu Ademoyo
    • Aribisala on Tuesday
    • Dele Agekameh
    • Pius Adesanmi
  • Politics
    • Ebeneezer Obadare
    • Femi Fani-Kayode
    • Garba Shehu
    • Hannatu Musawa
    • Zainab Suleiman Okino
  • Guest Columns
  • Faith
    • Article of Faith
    • Sunday Ogidigbo
    • Friday Sermon
    • Elevated Sight
  • Home
  • Democracy and Governance
    • Bámidélé Upfront
    • Jibrin Ibrahim
    • Okey Ndibe
  • Economy
    • Ifeanyi Uddin
  • Issues of the Day
    • Adeolu Ademoyo
    • Aribisala on Tuesday
    • Dele Agekameh
    • Pius Adesanmi
  • Politics
    • Ebeneezer Obadare
    • Femi Fani-Kayode
    • Garba Shehu
    • Hannatu Musawa
    • Zainab Suleiman Okino
  • Guest Columns
  • Faith
    • Article of Faith
    • Sunday Ogidigbo
    • Friday Sermon
    • Elevated Sight
No Result
View All Result
Premium Times Opinion
Home Opinion

Climate Striking For Action, By Nnimmo Bassey

by Premium Times
September 20, 2019
Reading Time: 5 mins read
0

We can have conferences and mount shows to give the impression that something is being done to avert a climate chaos. However, they will not stop the floods. This is no time for make believe. This is no time for pretence. This is time to remind policy makers and polluters that the solution to the crisis are known and the time for talks is over.


Extreme storms, hurricanes and cyclones are occurring so frequently that they are almost taken for granted. Recently The Bahamas and parts of the U.S.A were hit by hurricane Dorian. Earlier in the year it was cyclone Idai, followed by Kenneth and then Fani in the Indian Ocean. Those cyclones battered Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, Seychelles and parts of the coastal areas of eastern India. Scientists surmised that the cyclones that killed over a thousand in Mozambique and wreaked $2 billion worth of damage there was made more intense by the warming of the ocean.

In 2000, flooding in Mozambique caused extensive damage and pictures of disparate citizens stranded on rooftops, tree tops and broken bridges made the rounds in the global media. In 2012, flooding in Nigeria took the lives of 363 persons and displaced 2.1 million others. Last year, over 100 persons died in floods in the country. All these come and go as news and the numbers of persons killed and properties damaged all go down as mere statistics.

As I write this, I am reading of another storm hitting the Bahamas and an headline informing that the Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency (NIHSA) predicts weather related destruction in parts of Nigeria by October, as flood marching down from the upper reaches of the Niger Basin, comprising Guinea, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Cote d’ivoire, Benin, Chad and Cameroon, arrive there. The floods are coming and we have a month’s notice to relocate to higher grounds. Storms in Guinea and other upstream nations will pile up the flood that will quietly wiggle its way down the River Niger and take unsuspecting communities downstream by surprise. But, have they not been forewarned?

Were we not all forewarned in 2018 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that we have barely twelve years within which to take real climate action to avert catastrophic climate crisis? What have we done to show that we understand the enormity of the looming dire situation? Precious little is being done or planned to be done. Countries are still struggling to make any serious commitment to the so-called Nationally Determined Contributions, as required by the Paris Agreement. It has long been known that the climate crisis requires holistic approaches, with nations assigned amounts of emissions to cut, as determined and required by sciences and according to historical and current responsibility.

Unfortunately, the climate negotiations have become arena for nations to agree on what is convenient for them to do or not to do, completely ignoring the climate debt and the fact that rich, industrialised, polluting nations have already grabbed 80 per cent of the carbon budget. We are seeing the burden of climate action being loaded on poor, vulnerable nations and territories that never contributed significantly to the stock of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. These poor countries are required to turn their forests and soils and seas into carbon sinks so that polluters can continue with pollution-as-usual in the name of business.

Embrace renewable energy. Embrace agroecological food production. Stop the weakening of national resilience through warfare. It is time for the payment of ecological and climate debt, not scrapping around for elusive Green Climate Finance. Respect the rights of nature and all beings.


Did you hear of the legislation in the Philipinnes requiring that students must plant ten trees or they would not graduate from college? While planting trees is a great idea, hanging this on a student’s graduation is another manifestation of injustice in the distribution of climate responsibilities.

This manner of intergenerational buck passing is unacceptable and confirms why radical actions must be taken to force governments to take up their responsibilities. The spokesperson of the African Group at the Conference of the Parties (COP) at Copenhagen in 2009 wept when nations were pushing for a climate ambition of 1 degree Celsius above preindustrial levels. He declared the target as unjust and would mean the incineration of Africa. With unchecked burning of fossil fuels and rising consumption and wastage, that 1 degree threshold has been crossed and today we pathetically celebrate a target of “1.5 or well below 2 degrees.”

In his The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Global Warming, Michael Tennesen states that if all the ice sheets on earth were to melt we would have a sea level rise of approximately 60 metres or 200 feet. If that were to happen, only a few would find higher ground to relocate to. In fact, in some low lying coastal areas, a sea level rise of 1 metre or 3 feet would translate to the submergence of land to a distance of several kilometres into the hinterland.

The polar ice caps and all the ice sheets may not yet be cracking and collapsing into the sea at this time, but we have the warming that the scene is set for that to happen. Will nations heed the warmings we have today and take needed actions? Is the world ready to leave fossil fuels in the ground and ensure a rapid transition to renewable energy sources?

As we march in the climate strikes, the storms, cyclones, hurricanes continue to batter our peoples and territories. Nevertheless, we march. But our marches must never offset or take the place of action.


We are happy that the Climate Strike has caught the attention of the world. We salute the youth for showing disgust at the slumber of adults and policy makers, while the climate crisis unfolds.

We can have conferences and mount shows to give the impression that something is being done to avert a climate chaos. However, they will not stop the floods. This is no time for make believe. This is no time for pretence. This is time to remind policy makers and polluters that the solution to the crisis are known and the time for talks is over. Now is the time to accept that climate change is the result of the failure of markets and the social alignments engendered by them. Now is the time for action. Keep the fossils in the ground. Halt the burning of forests, especially in the Amazon. Halt all the false solutions.

Embrace renewable energy. Embrace agroecological food production. Stop the weakening of national resilience through warfare. It is time for the payment of ecological and climate debt, not scrapping around for elusive Green Climate Finance. Respect the rights of nature and all beings.

As we march in the climate strikes, the storms, cyclones, hurricanes continue to batter our peoples and territories. Nevertheless, we march. But our marches must never offset or take the place of action.

Nnimmo Bassey is an environmental activist and the founder of Health of Mother Earth Foundation.

Picture Credit: Baz Ratner/Reuters.

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Pocket
  • Share on Tumblr

Related

Previous Post

Xenophobia: Niger Republic Too Is Guilty, By Suleiman Uba Gaya

Next Post

Buhari Tidies House, Hones “Next Level” Cabinet, By Sufuyan Ojeifo

Related Posts

Zamfara Gold As Commonwealth, By Zailani Bappa
Opinion

Sheikh Gumi, Governor Matawalle and the Sands of Time, By Zailani Bappa

February 2, 2021
June 12 As Democracy Day Needs To Be Reconsidered, By Bashir Tofa
Opinion

The Need To Act Now To Stop the Ethnic Conflagration!, By Bashir Othman Tofa

February 2, 2021
Kofi Annan: In Service of the World, By Ejeviome Eloho Otobo & Oseloka H. Obaze
Opinion

Biden’s Likely Policy Orientation Toward Africa, By Ejeviome E. Otobo and Oseloka H. Obaze

February 2, 2021
Agenda for ‘Born Again’ JAMB and TETFUND, By Tunde Musibau Akanni
Opinion

Oyeweso, A Celebrated Historian, Ascends the Sixth Floor, By Tunde Akanni

February 2, 2021
Before Nigeria Burns, By Akin Fadeyi
Opinion

Is President Buhari Presiding Over the Last United Nigeria?, By Akin Fadeyi

February 2, 2021
On A Soyinka Prize In ‘Illiteracy’, By Biko Agozino
Opinion

Obasanjo: Only Those Who Did Not Do Well Went Into the Military, By Biko Agozino

February 1, 2021
Next Post
Buhari Tidies House, Hones “Next Level” Cabinet, By Sufuyan Ojeifo

Buhari Tidies House, Hones "Next Level" Cabinet, By Sufuyan Ojeifo

Towards 2019: The Executive and Legislature Power Intrigues, By Rafiq Raji

Climate Change and Conflict In West Africa (4), By Rafiq Raji

Editorial

  • EDITORIAL: The Urgency of Tackling Nigeria’s Second Wave of COVID-19

    EDITORIAL: The Urgency of Tackling Nigeria’s Second Wave of COVID-19

  • EDITORIAL: Unearthing the Cogent Lessons In the NESG-CBN Economic Policy Imbroglio

    EDITORIAL: Unearthing the Cogent Lessons In the NESG-CBN Economic Policy Imbroglio

  • EDITORIAL: COVID-19: Calling On Nigeria’s Billionaires and Religious Leaders To Step Up

    EDITORIAL: COVID-19: Calling On Nigeria’s Billionaires and Religious Leaders To Step Up

  • EDITORIAL: Bichi Must Go; Buhari Must Halt Slide Into Despotism

    EDITORIAL: Bichi Must Go; Buhari Must Halt Slide Into Despotism

  • EDITORIAL: The Flaws In Governor Emefiele’s Five-Year Plan For Central Bank of Nigeria

    EDITORIAL: The Flaws In Governor Emefiele’s Five-Year Plan For Central Bank of Nigeria

Subscribe to our Opinion articles via email

Enter your email address to get notifications of new opinion articles as they are published.

Join 526,543 other subscribers

Most Popular

  • The Bad Consequences and Dangers of Adultery and Fornication (Zina) In Islam, By Murtadha Gusau
    The Bad Consequences and Dangers of Adultery and Fornication (Zina) In Islam, By Murtadha Gusau
  • The Women Prohibited For Men To Marry In Islam, By Murtadha Gusau
    The Women Prohibited For Men To Marry In Islam, By Murtadha Gusau
  • World Teachers Day and The Position of Teachers In Islam, By Murtadha Gusau
    World Teachers Day and The Position of Teachers In Islam, By Murtadha Gusau
  • Islam and the Conditions For Marrying More Than One Wife, By Murtadha Gusau
    Islam and the Conditions For Marrying More Than One Wife, By Murtadha Gusau
  • You Will Be Held Responsible On What Happened To Your Children!, By Murtadha Gusau
    You Will Be Held Responsible On What Happened To Your Children!, By Murtadha Gusau
  • Revisiting the Corruption Theory of A Departed Journalist, By Banji Ojewale
    Revisiting the Corruption Theory of A Departed Journalist, By Banji Ojewale
  • The Importance Of Keeping Secrets In Islam, By Murtadha Gusau
    The Importance Of Keeping Secrets In Islam, By Murtadha Gusau

Like us on Facebook

Like us on Facebook

Podcasts

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

  • Main News
  • About Us
  • Contact

© 2022 JNews - Premium WordPress news & magazine theme by Jegtheme.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Democracy and Governance
    • Bámidélé Upfront
    • Jibrin Ibrahim
    • Okey Ndibe
  • Economy
    • Ifeanyi Uddin
  • Issues of the Day
    • Adeolu Ademoyo
    • Aribisala on Tuesday
    • Dele Agekameh
    • Pius Adesanmi
  • Politics
    • Ebeneezer Obadare
    • Femi Fani-Kayode
    • Garba Shehu
    • Hannatu Musawa
    • Zainab Suleiman Okino
  • Guest Columns
  • Faith
    • Article of Faith
    • Sunday Ogidigbo
    • Friday Sermon
    • Elevated Sight

© 2022 JNews - Premium WordPress news & magazine theme by Jegtheme.

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.
 

Loading Comments...