Organisation calls for more action on Climate mitigation

A non-governmental organisation in Nigeria, the Creative Visions Development Foundation in collaboration with Christian Aid Nigeria says it will continue to create awareness to help mitigate climate change issues across the country, through its project Youth Advocacy for Climate Change Action (YACA).

The programme Intern of YACA, Mr Elvis Ekechi, disclosed this in an interview with Voice of Nigeria, in Abuja the nation’s capital.

Mr Elvis, said flooding has been one of the major causes of Climate changes which has also affected residents of the FCT early in the year.

“ One of the ways Climate change has been affecting the youths in Nigeria is displacement and loss of means of livelihoods. Flooding has been a major problem in Nigeria and across the world. Especially FCT, if you are aware about what happened in Trademore estate Lugbe, so many persons were displaced, this is one of the causes and one of the effects that happens when flooding takes place. And also talking about drought. Drought is one of the things that happens in the cause of climate change, and it’s brings about health risk to the life of the people.” He said

He also noted that YACA, is currently working with secondary schools in the FCT, and policy makers to help implement the organisation’s mandates.

“We are doing some tree planting this week in selected secondary schools in the FCT” Mr Elvis stated.

He said the that organisation has been engaging and organizing climate change workshops to enlighten the general public on climate change crisis and how to mitigate them.

“Recently Creative Vision Development Foundation, has helped us to to organise this workshops aided by Christian Aid Nigeria, when doing that we’ve been having workshops to create a kind of sensitization and awareness to youth generally, this awareness always has also been done through campaign and media appearances, which is what we are one of the ways we are actually doing and I feel this actually has a positive impact so far.” He explained.

Also speaking another programme Intern, Miss Ifeoma Chukwu says the organisation is currently working with other relevant stakeholders in the environmental sector to raise voices, and advocate for policy implementation and guidelines on issues related to Climate change to be implemented.

She also appealed to the governments to implement policies that will ensure climate change mitigation.

“We advocate for planting of trees and communities in our houses and estimates everywhere because trees have, over the years proven to be a carbon sink, cause the major cause of climate change, is the fact that greenhouse causes a lot of it, we’ve been talking about planting of trees, managing waste, because most times this model actually leads to most of these causes of this flooding is improper indiscriminate waste management.”

She however, called on the general public to join YACA in the advocacy campaign in planting trees as this would also help in the mitigation of Climate crisis.

“ We carried out tree planting activity in Karshi community a suburb in the Federal Capital Territory where we planted eighty trees both in the Emir palace and community green area.” She explained.

She however emphasised on the need to stop the cutting down of trees and not replacing them.

She said the organisation is also working in partnership with Abuja Environmental Protection Agency and relevant stakeholders in the environmental sector to address the impact of climate change in the country.

“We are joining hands with the National Council on Climate Change, are working with them to raise voices to raise awareness to advocate for distance to be implemented.” She added.

The organisation also appeals to the Nigerian government to enforce policies that will ensure climate change adaptation and mitigation, while also calling on all the Nigerian youths to joins forces with organisation in achieving its mandates.

The organization is on facebook Creative Visions Development Foundation and twitter @CVDEFNIGERIA