African CSOs tell govts to make big polluters pay

Climate justice coalition releases liability roadmap
Scores of civil society groups in Africa, yesterday, joined their counterparts worldwide to demand that their governments hold big polluters accountable for the devastation their extractive activities have caused humanity and the environment.
  
The Global Make Big Polluters Pay campaign was first launched in September 2019 at the United Nations Secretary General’s Climate Summit in New York City.

At the 25th Conference of Parties (COP25) in Madrid, Spain, over 200,000 participants from about 63 countries, including those from Africa, urged the delegates to make a case for big polluters to pay.
 

The issue of liability has taken on new life as countries of the Global North shove climate justice demands to the back seat in favour of incentives for big polluters in the wake of COVID-19, leaving majorly grassroots and frontline communities more vulnerable.
 
Executive Director of Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA), Akinbode Oluwafemi and the Associate Director, Aderonke Ige, at the launch in Lagos, said: “The launch of the liability roadmap is timely. It presents an opportunity and pathway that African governments must seize to finally hold polluting industries accountable for the environmental and human rights abuses they have caused in communities across Africa and the world over.”

Regional Director, Corporate Accountability Climate Campaign (CACC), Hellen Neima, said: “Liability presents an interesting prospect for communities that have for decades borne the brunt of big polluter’s assaults like oil spills in their rivers and farmlands, and the noxious gas flares that contribute in large part to the climate change.