Hold big environmental polluters accountable – African CSOs

African Civil society groups have tasked the government to hold big polluters accountable for the devastation their extractive activities have caused humanity and the environment.

Speaking on the Global Launch of the Liability Roadmap to Make Big Polluters Pay in Lagos, Executive Director of Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA), Akinbode Oluwafemi, explained why big polluters should put environmental well-being above expansion, extraction, and profit-making.

Akinbode said: “These industries’ abuses have not only knowingly fueled the climate crisis, but their actions have also undermined progress to address it including at institutions like the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). They have willfully delayed action, costing lives and hundreds of billions of dollars in damage.

“As with other sectors affected by the COVID 19 pandemic, the Big Polluters are now attempting to profit from the pandemic, demanding government bailouts and rolling out PR schemes that paint them as saviors in this crisis.”

Associate Director, CAPPA, Aderonke Ige, said the launch of the liability roadmap was timely.

“It presents an opportunity and pathway that African governments must seize to finally hold polluting industries accountable for the environmental and human rights abuses they have caused in communities across Africa and the world over.”

Regional Director, Corporate Accountability Climate Campaign (CACC), Hellen Neima, said: “Liability presents an interesting prospect for communities that have for decades borne the brunt of big polluter’s assaults like oil spills in their rivers and farmlands, and the noxious gas flares that contribute in large part to the climate change.

The Global Make Big Polluters Pay campaign was first launched in September 2019 at the United Nations Secretary General’s Climate Summit in New York City.

At the 25th Conference of Parties (COP25) in Madrid, Spain, over 200,000 participants from about 63 countries, including those from Africa, urged the delegates to make a case for big polluters to pay.

Source: The Nation