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Don canvasses ways for environmental sustainability

By Tayo Oredola and Victor Gbongun
14 December 2016   |   1:44 am
To salvage the earth from its unexpected end, a Professor of Geography and Dean in the Faculty of Social Sciences, Lagos State University (LASU), Ayo Omotayo....
Lagos State University

Lagos State University

To salvage the earth from its unexpected end, a Professor of Geography and Dean in the Faculty of Social Sciences, Lagos State University (LASU), Ayo Omotayo, has called on government to take serious steps in eradicating poverty, as it exists in the rural areas, as well as re – industrialization of the country along safe and sustainable development path.

Delivering the 56th edition of LASU’s inaugural lecture series in Lagos, Omotayo, noted that over 90 per cent of Nigerian factories are running inefficient energy systems and in a near future may not be able to compete globally.

He advanced the need for government to re order its educational priorities through a new curriculum that emphasis appreciable understanding of the environment.

The LASU don therefore appealed to government to constitute a national conference on environmental laws and sustainable development.

Omotayo proffered the reduction of usage of fossil fuels, avoid plastic bottle usage, reuse of newspapers among others as major actions to be embarked on to save the immediate Nigerian environment.

He added, “a report predicts that by 2030 there would be more plastics in the ocean than fishes.”Omotayo remarked that in the case of Lagos, sea level rise has been observed to threaten the long existence of freshwater dependent eco system with low line island in Epe and Ikorudu.

To save Lagos, he suggested: “Clearing of coastal inlets, hardening of shorelines, modification of land use policies especially at waterfronts and foreshore buffering.”

To operationalise green economy in the context of a stable climate regime, he said nations must advocate that green economy concept must be guided and enshrined with a number of principles which include common but differentiated responsibilities to promote climate justice, equitable distribution of wealth within and among nations and precautionary approach in which science is utilized to enhance social and environmental outcomes, among others.

He urged the society to take into cognizant the role of women in saving the ecosystem since they are first line of contact with the resources of the environment in most developing countries.

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