By Grace Samuel
The global president of the Women Empowerment Program, Priscilla Achakpa, has said the impact of climate change on women and children, particularly during crisis like relocation and or migration, needs everyone’s atttention.
Priscilla made the call during a recent forum of stakeholder’s in the environment sector.
She urged the government to take more action on protection of the women and children agaist the impacts of climate change.
She said she believe strongly that it is essential to find ways to motivate the people to confront climate change rather than just focusing on adaptation.
According to her, the impact of climate change have had severe impact on mental health of some people particularly women who suddenly found themselves to be aa widow as a result of losing their husbands, including those who lost their livelihoods due to flood and others who have suffered one untold hardship to another as a result of climate change.
She said holistic perspectives are required to address climate issues.
According to Achakpa, climate change situation is getting worse in the country and it exposes over 40 million people to danger.
”The livelihoods of many people have been affected by climate change. It has led to insurgency in the north part of the country while it caused lots of environmental havoc and damage in the southern part of the country.
”Many women have been displaced from their homes, some have migrated to other areas, some have become residents of the Internally Displaced People (IDP) centres that dotted the northern part of the country. Unfortunately, some are yet to be accounted for,” she said.
Another participant at the forum, Mr. Salisu Dahiru, emphasized the need for fairness in addressing the issue of climate change.
He said about 20 countries are responsible for all the emissions and are responsible for global warming, still they are not doing enough to combat climate change.
‘Even with the issue of transitioning to cleaner oil, these countries in question are still focus on oil drilling, at the expense of the environment. Nigeria needs to prioritize sustainable development and ensure that all efforts to combat climate change are done with human face,” he said.