As Presidents across some African countries joined Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday to commission the world’s largest single-train 650,000 barrels per day refinery in Lagos, parliamentarians from different nations on the continent have raised fundamental questions on issues of climate change and pollution.
While they acknowledged the refinery will reposition Nigeria’s economy for good they raised concerns over the possible impacts of the emissions from the plant.
The event, which coincided with the inauguration of the refinery in the same city of Lagos on Monday, was the West African Parliament Conference on Climate Change convened by the African Group of Negotiators Expert Support (AGNES) in collaboration with Nigeria’s National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS) and the National Council on Climate Change (NCCC).
According to AGNES’ Director of Climate Policy and Research, David Awolala, Nigeria in its efforts to become an industrialised nation “must keep on the path of development,” and be able to manage its externalities – the negative impacts of industrialisation.
He suggested that Dangote Group needs to focus more on renewable energy, especially those that have cooling effects on their production processes.
The conference had parliamentarians from more than 10 African countries to map out strategies to fight the climate change menace.
The countries are Burkina Faso, Benin Republic, Côte D’ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.
In his remarks, the Director of AGNES, Raymond Kasei, a Kenyan, said the aim of the conference and workshop is to sensitise members of parliaments in the area of climate change and strengthen them in their legislation oversight activities within their various parliaments.