Some civil society organisations in Africa have joined their counterparts in other parts of the world to demand that their governments hold big polluters accountable for the devastation their extractive activities have caused the environment.
Development Diaries understands that 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, it was gathered that more than 200,000 participants from about 63 countries, including those from Africa, urged the delegates to make a case for big polluters to pay.
Their demand was amplified with the release of a liability roadmap outlining guidelines on how governments could hold polluting industries liable for their activities causing environmental degradation and climate change.
Executive Director of Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA), Akinbode Oluwafemi, and the Associate Director, Aderonke Ige, at the launch in Lagos, said that the launch of the liability roadmap was timely.
They added that it presented 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.
‘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’, Regional Director, Corporate Accountability Climate Campaign (CACC), Hellen Neima, said.
Source: Guardian
Photo source: Christiana Cartre