By Abel JOHNGOLD ORHEUATA
Stakeholders at a roundtable discussion on methane abatement held in Asaba, the Capital of Delta State, last Thursday with a call for collaborative efforts across governments, industries, communities, and individuals to address the methane challenge through innovation, policy, and community involvement, aiming for tangible environmental and public health improvements, wants immediate enforcement and or improvements of existing policy frameworks by the government.
The call is part of the communique issued at the one-day roundtable organised by the Environmental Centre for Oil Spills and Gas Flaring (ECOSGF), African Centre for Transparency Accountability and Initiative (AfriTAL) with Stakeholder Democracy Network as technical partners, in collaboration with other key CSOs. The project was funded by TrustAfrica.
The theme of the discussion was Methane Abatement in Nigeria; A Special Focus on Methane Emissions from Anthropogenic Sources with participants also calling for Environmental Impact Assessment before the commencement of large-scale agricultural businesses.
About forty-five critical stakeholders from Environment, Health, House of Assembly Miyety Allah, Cattle Readers, NGOs and media practitioners gathered at Top Rank Hotels in Asaba, to brainstorm on solutions and synthesize new knowledge to drive down methane emissions from anthropogenic sources.
Giving his remarks opening remarks, Fr. Edward Obi, National Coordinator of the Environmental Centre for Oils Spills and Gas Flaring, (ECOSGF), who joined the meeting virtually, enjoined participants to pursue strategic collaborations between community stakeholders, government, and civil society organizations in addressing methane abatement and its consequences on global warming.
In his presentation at the event, Dr. Ogbeifun Louis Brown, Executive Director, Africa Initiative for Transparency and Responsibility Leadership (AfriTAL) listed some practical steps to address methane emissions in Nigeria.
“First, many of our garbage cans are open. Many of our waste dumps are exposed within our environment, for instance. So, if we decide to do better by bagging our waste from the house level before putting it in the garbage can, then we cover it, that is within the environment.
“Secondly, at the larger scale, within the community, maybe the local government, all those baggage we expose into the landfills can we begin to ensure that we bury the tom properly.
“Simple things like that can help our villagers or our communities to know very well that there are things that we do to help abate methane in our environment.”
The Roundtable opined that the government as one of the major players should enact policies and frameworks that would help reduce what people do to stop methane; emplace policies that would address innovative areas with actionable strategies that would benefit everyone in the three-tier government setup and sensitization and enlightenment campaigns by appropriate government agencies on the imperatives of reduction of methane emissions from the local family and community levels, among many other demands.
The program, which stems from findings that Methane emissions from anthropogenic sources constitute about 60% of global emissions, making it imperative to highlight its critical role in temperature rise and climate change matters, reiterated the need to carry out accurate measurements as a critical mechanism to limit methane emissions that these emission sources tend to receive limited visibility.