Global Call To Mitigate Climate Change Heightens.

By Ferdinand Olise

As the world continues to grapple with issues of climate change, there have been several calls for the global community to work towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goal, SDG 13 which calls for urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.

In line with this, the Overall Project Lead, the Open University, United Kingdom, Dr Alison Fox, said, to work equitably with one another in protecting the environment, there is the need to work together to create conditions for children and young people to access their heritage, local culture, languages, their natural environment, and local materials.

Dr Fox who spoke virtually at a Stakeholders’ Climate Change Knowledge Exchange Workshop/Art Exhibition, held in Abuja on Friday, stated that the project is connecting communities and heritages against climate change.

“We’ve taken on the project of working out how to play an advocacy role for children and young people’s views for a sustainable future. We’re creating facilitated spaces which open doors for children and young people to speak for themselves with their calls for action against climate change. This supports their rights to voice their views over matters that affect them under the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child Article 12 through means which enable children and young people to speak for themselves.

“We’re enabling them to express these views under Article 13, and to do so as global citizens. We’re being guided by a set of post-humanist principles, which see us active in reducing power imbalances, rejecting the exceptional position of humans in society and the world more generally, and embracing the complexity and entanglement that this stance involves”, she added.

On her part, the Director, Department of Climate Change, Federal Ministry of Environment, Dr. Iniobong Abiola-Awe, who was represented by the Head of Integration Division, Department of Cardiology of the Ministry, Dr. Asmaul Jibril, said, Nigeria’s national climate change policy, the energy transition plan, it’s forestry efforts, and plastic waste control strategies, are examples of this commitment. According to her, full environmental transformation demands shared responsibility and cross-partnerships.

“We are committed to supporting youth-led environmental initiatives, encouraging green entrepreneurship, and creating platforms where your innovations can scale and succeed. Whether you’re working in reforestation, sustainable agriculture, waste recycling, or climate education, your role is critical and deeply valued”, she said.

In her welcome address, the Project Lead (Nigeria), University of Ibadan, Dr Deborah Ayodele-Olajire, said the program is undertaken by participatory research and co-designed.

“This programme engages children who are here today, and young people from diverse communities in supporting activities regarding climate action across different locations. This program is committed to capacity building and empowerment, and our aim is to amplify the views of participants, amplify the views of the community, and raise the views of our children and young people with respect to climate change and climate action. This project is based on what we call activism.

“We are having an exhibition where young people are participating, and are expected to become climate Ambassadors as they go forward. Participating children will become more knowledgeable, confident, and committed to responding to the climate emergency. Their voices deserve to be heard. We want them to share their ideas with our policymakers. We want them to share their ideas with key stakeholders in the room today”, Ayodele-Olajire said.

On his part, Etaba Okpa, the Senior Legislative aide to the Chairman, House Committee on Environment, National Assembly, said they have witnessed an education that is very paramount when it has to do with environmental preservation.

“According to what the late Tanzanian leader said, Julius Nyerere, education itself is a transfer of accumulated knowledge and wisdom from generation to generation. So, the meaning is that we have come through our collaborative effort to educate the children and the children in turn have exhibited some illustrations that tend to help us on how we live with our environment.

“If you watch, all the illustrations point directly at a particular direction, tree planting, the importance of it to reduce global warming. Climate change vis-a-vis global warming affects everybody, and there’s no way you take away children when it has to do with this kind of engagement, because they are the ones, you know, that will transfer the knowledge you gain to the next generation, you know. I also made an observation. It’s not all about doing the urban thing. I’m not an urban-based politician. I believe so much in the grassroots arrangement.

“So in as much as we are doing this campaign here, I’ve also advised the organizers to trickle down, let this campaign get to the peripheries. The children of the downtrodden, the farmers, children of the farmers, those in the local primary school, they know the value of tree planting. Yes, you might be thinking that it’s only in big towns and cities where industrialized activities are being, no, no, no, no, even at home. What happens to the use of firewood, the fossil fire, the coal and everything, those things are used at home.
So, by the time we begin to inculcate this attitude of environmental sustainability, it will help us”, he said.

Highpoint of the programme was Art Exhibition by sixteen (16) Children from different schools, led by the Senate and House of Representatives. In their different art exhibitions which relate to issues of climate change, the student have these to say;

“My name is Victor Gamalial, I am from Command Day Secondary School, Maitama lungi Barracks, Abuja. I made some researches and then this is not my first time knowing on climate change. I’ve gone for so many programs and so many so many conventions on climate change, and I have been enlightened so many times on climate change and I’ve also chosen to be an advocate of climate change to be maintaining a good climate in the Earth. And my drawings; I try to show details in my drawings from what I know and what I’ve been told recently from the Dr Deborah. So I want to show the effects of climate change in our lives, and I made a divided work showing one part as the yellow part showing the effects with carbon dioxide and other gaseous substances. They are released from us from our human activities for example the factories which we work in; we release all these substances and then the earthquake on the ground caused due to desertification, and deforestation”.

“My name is Kolawole Daniel, I’m nine years old. I’m a learner from POWA International Children’s School, Gariki, Abuja. My Artwork represents how healthy the earth can be if we can prevent climate change. I’ve learned that I should be encouraged to know how to prevent climate change, and to educate others on how to prevent climate change”.

“My name is Saidu Tosin Nefisat.nI’m from Command Secondary School, Lungi Barracks, Maitama, Abuja. I’m 11 years old. My artwork describes storm shelters in the middle of a lively area where a tornado comes and starts to disrupt other buildings close by. So that storm shelter is built in case of any damages to structures around that particular environment. Like, if there have been damage to any structures or any houses nearby, whether poor, rich, any status can be destroyed due to the tornadoes. So, they can all rush to the storm shelter so that they can be safe. Building storm shelters can also prevent climate change or tornadoes from happening. And in Kastina, they experience heavy rainfall and thunderstorm, which could lead to tornadoes.
So, I advise everyone in helping us build storm shelters in those areas. And by understanding the causes and the prevention, taking initiative steps are very important in our society”.

“My name is Mercy Umukoro. I’m from Command Day Secondary School, Maitama Abuja, and I’m 15.
Plastics that find their way into the ocean, you know destroying life underwater. The main reason why I draw that is because plastics on its own takes a long time to decay. It also causes environmental pollution, thereby releasing gas, methane, into the air, into the atmosphere, which also causes ozone layer depletion.
So the main reason I drew that is to provide a solution to climate change. And those children exhibiting the art of showing care and concern for our environment. By picking up plastic waste for recycling, thank you very much”.

“My name is Adams David emmanuel, I am 12 years old. The reason why i drew that is to show is to show how the ships blow gases into the atmosphere which we humans call chlorophyll cables, thereby breaking the ozone layers bit by bit, and if this continues by the year 2050 the ozone layers will be destroyed completely, and the ultra rays of the sun will fall upon us, example, like bush burning and skin burning. The reason why I drew that is to show the effects and causes of of climate change in our environments, and the and the message i’m trying to tell us humans is that we should reduce our use of floral carpets in the environment”.

“My name is Vera Adediran from Brainyville International School. Today we created so many arts to come and exhibit it here in this competition. And I made a beautiful art on earth that was divided into two equal parts. One part was talking about the elements of nature, such as trees, vegetation, land, water, and the sun.
But when man activities come into place, they begin to cut down trees, which means deforestation.
And they also begin to build factories, which their exhaust goes into the air and pollutes it, leading to air pollution. Secondly, the carbon monoxide from the cars and canoes pollutes the air, which means people will not be able to breathe very well, they will be asthmatic, and they will have lung diseases”.

“My name is Nicole Orbih from Brainyville International School, I am eight years old. I made elements of nature such as the sun, clouds, birds, raindrops, the river, and sea animals. When the sun gets too hot it can cause drought or make the grass turn into a different color such as yellow and brown. The sun also causes evaporation”.

Meanwhile, the stakeholders called for a concerted and. collaborative efforts towards ending factors that promote climate in the world.