Environment as Electoral Issue

By Kayode Komolafe

kayode.komolafe@thisdaylive.com

0805 500 1974

It was fitting that the excellent moderators of the Anambra Governorship Election Debate put environment on the table among other issues for the candidates to address. Parts of Anambra state have been ravaged by gully erosion. Roads have been destroyed by the ecological menace which is responsible for some communities becoming inhabitable and inaccessible. Farmlands are shrinking and houses are collapsing in Anambra as in other states of the southeast, nay Nigeria. The problem is relatively more pronounced in the state than some others.

The ARISE NEWS duo of Reuben Abati and Ngozi Alaegbu justifiably allocated some time for the candidates who featured in the debate to enunciate their plans to combat erosion in state. The three candidates – Andy Uba of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Charles Chukwuma Soludo of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and the Valentine Ozigbo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) – were in agreement in acknowledging the reality of erosion as an environmental challenge, although they differed in terms of the depth of perspectives on how to the problem.

The example of what happened in the Anambra debate should be emulated in other state and national elections: environment should henceforth be a central issue of politics. Elections should be fought on the basis of party manifestoes on the environment among other issues. And that would be a rational step to take by political parties and their candidates for executive and legislative positions. In future governorship elections in other states, it would be helpful if candidates could tell the electorate their proposed policies to solve the problems of desertification, flooding and sanitation. As a matter of fact, all the candidates for the governorship election ought to state their policies on environment clearly while demonstrating how to fund the projects that should be implemented to achieve the policy objectives. In other words, environment should be squarely put at the heart of governance.

Doing so would simply mean being alert to the global trend in which damage to the environment has become an enormous risk the world. Oxford Philosopher Toby Ord rigorously argues this point in his recent book, The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity. According to Ord, existential risks are “just as real and urgent (as the present suffering of the poor), yet even more neglected.” The author posits optimistically that while environmental damage is one of those risks with “higher probability” of materialising, with the right policy choices humanity “can pull back from the precipice and, in time, create a future of astonishing value – with a richness of which we can barely dream, made possible by innovations we are yet to conceive.” National and subnational governments should be conscious of how this primacy of environment should shape socio-economic policies. After all, the human habitat has to be secure first before any development plan could be executed in a sustainable way.

Now, the damage to the environment is not only a scientific problem, it is also a huge geo-political issue. And the politics of the environment could indeed be a tricky one. As an electoral issue, perspectives are bound to vary in formulating solutions to the problem. Yet in order to formulate the solutions that could be effective a certain degree of consensus is needed. This is because regardless of the political, ideological and regional divides all the societal forces should collaborate to achieve results in environment policies.

This is partly what is playing out at the current global negotiations and discussions taking place at the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, United Kingdom.

At the take-off of the all-important conference, a team of scientists from the China, Europe and the United States released a report stating that by 2070 unless global warming is curbed 3 billion of the projected 9 billion world population would suffer from temperatures as high as what obtains in the hottest of the Sahara today. It is projected that about 19% of the planet would be affected by this extreme climate. The scientists could also foresee the possibility of migration of people in large numbers from the heat. Adaptability on the part of the people is also predicted

In the scenario-building, it has been predicted that by the middle of this century, Africa would double its population to 2.4 billion. And with a projected population of about 477 million, Nigeria would be the third largest nation displacing the United States. It is also projected that with a population of 61.5m Lagos would be the largest city in the world in 2075. The scenario poses a huge challenge for those responsible for development plans and policies to execute the strategy for the future. In the scenario, the “Shared Socio-Economic Pathway (SSP)” sketched for Nigeria is far from being cheery. The forecast is that of “business as usual, in which social, economic and technological trends do not shift markedly from historical patterns.”

The undertone of Afropessimism in the foregoing scenario-building is, of course, unmistakeable. It is, therefore, the task of governments at all levels to ensure that these scenarios do not play out eventually. It is a sacred duty those in charge of policies owed the future generations. After all, by the same projection Africa still has an opportunity of about five decades to reverse the trends using the instrumentality of consistent policies of pro-people and sustainable development.

The address of President Muhammadu to COP26 should be viewed in the context of the above trends and scenario. In the spirit of the Climate Paris Agreement, the United Nations has set 2050 as the target for the net-zero carbon emission. But Buhari reportedly told other world leaders yesterday that Nigeria’s target for zero carbon emission would be 2060.

By the way, India, the third largest polluter in the world, has a target of 2070!

Buhari’s statement is hinged on a balance of national economic development and a clean global environment.

The President said inter alia: “For Nigeria, climate change is not about the perils of tomorrow but about what is happening today. In our lifetime, nature has gone from a vast expanse of biodiversity to a shadow of itself.

“We are investing in renewables, hydro-dams and solar projects. Nigeria is not looking to make the same mistakes that are being repeated for decades by others. We are looking for partners in innovation, technology and finance to make cleaner and more efficient use of all available resources to help make for a more stable transition in energy markets.

“The revised Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) has additional priority sectors. Water and waste, nature-based solutions, adaptions and resilience, vulnerability assessment and a clean cooking gender and green jobs assessment.

“Nigeria has developed a detailed energy transition plan and roadmap based on data and evidence. This plan has highlighted some key facts that face the difficult conversations. Our transition plan also highlights the key role that gas must play in transitioning our economy across sectors.

“The data and evidence show that Nigeria can continue to use gas until 2040 without distracting from the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Earlier at a side event Buhari has expressed the optimism that Nigeria would give regional leadership in developing the “Great Green Wall.” The continental ambition really is the restoration of the 100 million hectares of degraded landscape which could be useful for agriculture. In a way, the defence of the environment is also a fight for food security in Africa. The President reiterated the commitment given at the One Planet Biodiversity held in Paris in January.

The tone and tenor of Buhari’s speech reaffirm the point that the environmental challenge facing different countries of the people would ultimately be resolved by geo-political negotiations. Unilateral steps and unbridled contestation for advantage would not bring solutions. To the rest of the world, perhaps the most absurd action of former United States president, Donald Trump, was the unilateral withdrawal of his country from the Climate Agreement reached among nations of the world in Paris in December 2014. Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, is doing the right by reversing the irrational policy steps of Trump. Biden made the American return to the Paris agreement an electoral issue in the 2019 presidential election campaign. It would be recalled that Trump also made the irresponsible withdrawal from the agreement part of his incoherent campaign in 2015. In the process, Trump even had some harsh words for Greta Thunberg, the exceptionally courageous young Swedish girl who is a symbol of her generation’s sustained campaign against climate change.

If environment is an issue of geo-political negotiations internationally, it should also be an electoral issue locally. The purpose is clear. Apart from mobilising the people in the process of solving environmental problems, the government would be confident to push its position in the international arena as President Buhari has just done in the COP26. When a government is elected it would be presumed that its mandate is inclusive the policy on environment.

In some western democracies environment has long been placed at the centre of politics. Environment often comes up as major issue of elections in some climes. Hence, Green Parties have won parliamentary seats and in some places parties focussing on the environment have joined coalitions to form governments. The global green movement has been resilient in defence of the environment. Some politicians are identified with the cause of the environment in their career. For instance, former American Vice President Al Gore is known to be passionate in promoting environment-friendly policies.

In real terms, environmentalism has been somewhat on the margin of Nigerian politics (in both military and civil dispensations). From campaigns in the late 1980s led by Ken Saro-Wiwa and other environment-conscious Niger Delta activists and some organisations brought the destruction of the oil-rich region to global attention. The judicial murder of the Ogoni 9 by the Abacha regime following the brutal killing of the Ogoni 4 further drew the world attention to the environmental problems of the Niger Delta region. Before the agitation from the Niger Delta, environment hit the headlines only when allegations of diversion of the statutory ecological funds were made against some state governors. The funds are meant to solve the problem of the environment in Nigeria manifesting as desertification, erosion, ocean surge, flooding, pollution, lack of sanitation etc. Definite policy positions on the issues should no longer be treated as footnotes in policy-making and implementation.

All told, the lesson from the international politics playing out at COP26 in Glasgow is that the environment should be made one of the central issues of domestic politics and policy.