The National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) said it would partner with OXFAM and Connected Development (CODE) on achieving net zero, climate change, and challenges in oil-bearing communities.
Prof. Aliyu Jauro, Director-General, NESREA said this in Abuja when the Civil Society Organisations paid an advocacy visit to the agency in Abuja.
Jauro said that the agency had a set of regulations targeted at controlling ecosystem challenges like a wetland, river banks, and lake shores to ensure that whatever was done did not impact the environment negatively.
He added that there were also regulations on coastal and marine area protection, surface and groundwater quality control, soil erosion, and flood control, among others, to ensure a good environment and tackle climate change.
He stressed the need for companies to abide by the guidelines of NESREA to curb environmental hazards and for communities to benefit from extractive resources.
“You mentioned the National Action Plan as the guiding principle, which talks about how companies do their business in relation to the issue of human rights.
“There is what is called the Environmental Impact Assessment which requires the incorporation of social components and they are all issues of human rights; so there is a need for companies to abide by these regulations in whatever they do.
” There is also the corporate social responsibilities guideline, these are the only ways we can reduce inequality which is very high in West Africa as it is mentioned that the entire wealth of West Africa is in the hands of one percent of the population.
“This is because there is a need to have a certain level of equality.
In some developed countries, they found a way of taxing such rich people to bring equality to the system, so there is a need for Nigeria to try and see how it could reduce the inequality gap.”
Jauro said that the agency would collaborate with the CSOs to see how it could drive some of its policies and ensure companies abided by the guidelines, adding that it was the only way to reduce inequality.
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Mr. Henry Ushie, Project Coordinator, Fiscal Accountability for Inequality Reduction OXFAM, said that the CSOs were advocating for communities and countries to be environmentally conscious in terms of climate change adaptation and resilience.
Ushie said that there was a new project launched in collaboration with CODE and OXFAM aimed to see how climate change could be mainstreamed into all conversations and brought to light.
“We want to see how communities can also play their role in keeping their environment clean.
“The government made a commitment to the United Nations Climate Change Conference, more commonly referred to as COP26 in 2021 to go net zero by 2060, 10 years ahead of the global commitment.
“So we want to see how agencies like NESREA and NOSDRA are making a concrete effort in terms of policy and practice to get to that point where we are able to say ‘yes’, we are net zero.”
He said that CODE’s Follow the Money initiative to track funds at the grassroots would play its role to track such expenditure on whether it was being targeted at reducing climate injustice, or promoting and ensuring the judicious use of the funds.
Mr. Hamzat Lawal, Chief Executive of CODE, said that as CSO leaders, it was important to explore ways to collaborate with the government because governments served the people and CSOs served the interests of the people.
Lawal said that CODE was leading a campaign in collaboration with OXFAM to look at how the Nationa Action Plan (NAP) on Business and Human Rights would be implemented.
” We know that in exploration across Nigeria, there have been incidents on human rights; today we are meeting with government regulators and investigative agencies to call their attention to this.
” Most importantly, it is to explore how we can collaborate with them to rebuild trust, particularly in engaging communities where these resources are domiciled.”
Lawal said the advocacy visit was also aimed at engaging the government on its preparedness for COP27 in Egypt in terms of policy implementation, results, lessons, and how Nigeria could overcome the challenges.
