Moved by the devastating effect of climate change on the environment, the Enugu state government at the weekend began engagements with its youth to extract their input in her Climate Policy and Action Plan document.

Although the state had in 2012 set up a department for climate change and had gone ahead to make budgetary provisions towards the sector, it had not been able to develop an implementable framework for mitigating the issue in the state.

At a consultative forum with youth leaders drawn across the state, the State’s Head, Climate Change Department, Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, Nnamdi Arum, stated that the government was desirous of ensuring a workable policy that had the input of various stakeholders to ensure the success of the programme.

Arum stated that the efforts to mitigate climate change had been hampered by awareness creation, hence a collaboration with the South Saharan Social Development Organisation (SSDO), Action aid Nigeria and Society for Planet and Prosperity to ensure that all stakeholders are carried along.

He added: ” Climate change is real and is not something that should be glossed over because it is already taking effect on the environment. The youth is key to any policy that must succeed because of the number of youths in the country.

“When you say you are a climate change advocate, are you living by the code or are you deliberately emitting offensive substances in the environment. So our code of conduct, our behavioral pattern towards environmental issues are things that aid climate change”.

He said that the Peter Mbah-led administration was desirous of tackling climate change, especially the ones created by the activities of human, hence the appointment of a Senior Special Adviser (SSA) on Climate change.

“Before he came on board, we have been trying to draft a policy on Climate Change. It is a serious matter. We have started doing other researches,” he said.

“We need to engage people more and that is the essence of this workshop. We need to engage youths on their views that must be added to Enugu state policy on climate change and after that, it will be launched. so it is a giant step.”

Head of Programs, SSDO, Udochukwu Egwim, said several engagements had held in the state towards developing climate change policy document that was implementable.

“This is based on our realisation that climate change touches the environment, the students, men, women, old and every aspect of life. For today, we are looking at another dimension where we get youth leaders from different leaders to also proffer their thoughts on this policy so that at the end of the day we also have a policy that has youth angle. That is why we are here and we are getting the youths to provide their thoughts.

“We are getting action plan from this consultative forum. When we gather these thoughts we send it as a feedback to the committee working on the policy. At the moment, they don’t have a policy on climate change in the state.

“The state has been making some strides in climate change and set up a department in 2012 and having budgetary allocation but we are moving ahead with a framework to ensure we integrate all sectors so that even if you have private and foreign investors, they will have frame work that will protect their investments because climate change has various aspects.”