ERA/FoEN tasks Shell, multi national firms on environmental justice

The Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) has tasked Shell and other oil multi-national companies to respect environmental rights in order to prevent runaway climate change.

Addressing journalists in Benin City during a press conference with theme, “Climate change court case against Shell”, Executive Director (ERA/FoEN), Dr. Godwin Uyi Ojo, said (ERA/FoEN) has thrown its weight behind plans by friends of the Earth Netherlands to take shell to court if it does not act on demands to stop its destruction of the climate.

Ojo, decrying the activities of multi-national firms operating in the country lamented that, “By the day it is becoming evident that Shell may be running from its mess but cannot evade justice. The plans by friends of the Earth Netherlands to take Shell to court will further embolden impacted communities in the Niger Delta to institute more cases to demand that their lives seized and ruined by Shell’s activities are taken back.”

He added that Friends of the Earth case is unique because it is the first climate lawsuit demanding that a fossil fuel company acts on climate change, rather than seeking compensation.

Ojo, who said the ground breaking case, if successful would significantly limit Shell’s investments in oil and gas globally by requiring them to comply with global climate targets noted that the case is supported by Friends of the Earth International, which campaigns for climate justice for people across the world impacted by dirty energy and climate change.

Lamenting the ruins caused by Shell’s activities, Ojo said, “in Nigeria, according to the UNEP report on Assessment of Ogoni (2011) Shell is guilty of polluting community lands, community waters and gassing communities through gas flaring which is a major contributor to climate change.”

He added that aside the widely known Ogoni pollution which Shell is responsible for, it still continues to flare gas in contravention of a High Court judgment in Nigeria in 2005 that makes gas flaring illegal in Iwherekan and other Nigerian communities.

“We anticipate the Friends of the Earth Netherlands suit will open the doors for impacted communities to demand that Shell and its co-polluters in the fossil fuels industry are made accountable for their environmental injustice across the globe,” Ojo said.