Environmental Defenders Network (EDEN), an alliance of frontline environmental rights activists, has launched its physical office in Lagos State.
Located on the Toyin Axis of Ikeja Lagos State, the office hopes to serve as a contact point for correspondence and dialogue with state and non-state actors on critical issues bothering on climate justice and human rights activism.
The facility also serves as the Lagos office for Renevlyn Development Initiative (RDI), a member of the coalition led by its Executive Director, Philip Jakpor.
EDEN is a new coalition of individual groups with an inspirational goal of ensuring human rights and environmental preservation are guaranteed under all weathers.
The coalition includes Renevlyn Development Initiative led by Philip Jakpor and the Community Development Advocacy Foundation (CODAF), led by Ubrei Joe.
Hosting journalists at the new facility recently, as part of activities to herald the opening, Barrister Chima Williams, the Executive Director of EDEN, led other stakeholders to a stimulating session that luminated on germane developmental issues in the environmental ecosystem.
The issues included: suspected capture of Conference of Parties (COP), an annual convergence of global players seeking common solution on smooth transition from fossil fuel to renewable energy; flagrant abuses of Environmental Impact Assessment Act (EIA Act 1992) by international and local corporations; relentless corporate impunity and government complicity by abusers and polluter of the environment; and the back-channel recolonization of Africa through the forceful grabbing and hijacking of its natural resources.
William said, EDEN was ready to serve as a catalyst for the liberation of the vulnerable people whose fundamental human rights are being trampled upon in the process of excavation or exploration of the nation’s various mineral resources, and would do so by relentlessly holding the culprits and their connivers accountable to the rule of law and global best practices.
“There are countless issues around climate justice and human rights abuses in the world told,” William stressed, saying “the issues became pronounced in Nigeria given the Niger Delta experience, the pains and anguish left in the wake, the corporate recklessness and despicable behaviors of the IOMs (International Oil Companies), and government’s seeming helplessness around the issues” he said.
On government’s continued docility over the environmental and human rights injustices in the Niger Delta and other states of the country, William said, attitudes needed to be challenged with intense and sustained demands for public accountability.
According to him, “one of the problems in Nigeria is that the government has continued to make mockery of itself by being allowed to ignore or circumvent the law it put in place for social good. A good example of that is its refusal to enforce the Environmental Impact Assessment Act of 1992 on IOMs and other organisations that are into mineral exploration in the country.
“The failure of government to insistently uphold or enforce its laws, including an important instrument such as the EIA Act is a validation of its complicity in the issues around environmental injustice in the country,” he alleged.
In his remarks, Mr. Michael Simire, a Climate Expert and Publisher of EnviroNews, Nigeria’s first Climate Publishing Platform, raised what he described as the seeming “COP Capture” by heavy polluters around the world, and the conspiracy of the developed countries in pushing their Fossil Fuel industry players into the world’s climate change alliance.
He said he has been observing the trend for a couple of years and he was worried the conspiracy is clearly to make mockery of the genuine demand for justice through compensation for the affected countries, who are worst hit by the catastrophic impacts of climate change.
“There is a trend that seems to be sponsored by these heavy polluters’ countries, who now bring in their oil and gas big guns and candidates pushing the views of the west into the COPs arena. Most of them are being sponsored to lead the world’s most important coalition against the injustices done by their heavy dependence on fossil fuel for industrialized activities in the first place,” Simire said.
Conferences of the Parties (COPs) are how the world organizes its collective response to the global challenge of climate change. World leaders gather at the annual summit, which started in Rio De Jenario, the capital of Brazil, in 1992, to seal what is today known as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
A check on the profiles of the successive past Presidents of COPs for a, including COP27, and COP28, corroborated the suspicions of Simire.
Ambassador Sameh Hassan Shoukry, for instance, was born in Cairo, Egypt, in 1952, studied law, and served as the COP27 President. He had been a career ambassador, and because of his long service of diplomatic career, believed to be one of the proteges of the western dictatorial tendencies.
He had served as Egypt’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Egypt to Austria and the International Organisation; served as Secretary for International and Follow-up to the President, Husni Mubarak; served as Director, Department of the United States and Canada at the foreign ministry, Cairo Egypt; Counsellor, Permanent Mission of Egypt to the United Nations, New York; and First Secretary, Embassy of Egypt in Buenos Aires, Agentina.
Shoukry speaks Arabic, English and Spanish languages.
Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, COP28 President, an Emirati Politician, was the Minister of Industry and Advance Technology of the UAE, he also served as the Pioneering Chief Executive Officer for Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), and CEO of Adnoc, UAE oil giant.
COP 21 President, Marie-Segolene Royal, birn September 22, 1953, was France’s Politician and Minister of Environment, Energy, and the Sea.
“This was the reason why the COP 28 would be my first and last attendance at the annual gathering,” Williams said.
“It was a total waste of time. Instead of focusing on how to operationalize the Loss and Damage Funding so as to assuage the worst hit countries and set the world on the motion to healing process, the conference refused to entertain the core social justice issues! The Loss and Damage Funding has to be smuggled into the agenda after some protests at the entrance of the event! This is absolutely ridiculous,” Williams alleged, justifying his resolution to never again attend the event.
Jakpor, the ED of RDI, who doubles as the Director of Programmes for EDEN, said the situation did not change during their complimentary African conference on climate change held recently in Egypt as the event was hijacked by the same heavy polluters.
According to him, “we thought the Climate conference in Marakesh Egypt was going to be an African event where the concerns would be evenly discussed and common fronts would be forged to address them, only to meet an event massively populated by the heavy polluters who clearly hijacked the event and pushed the main issues to the back of the agenda,” Jakpor added.