By Adedapo Adesanya
Fierce advocate for climate change, Nazanin Alakija, recently published her op-ed titled “Global Conflict is Losing Focus on Humanity’s Biggest Threat, Climate Change.”
The piece, which was featured in Forbes Africa Magazine, examines the potential impact of how the fight to get a handle on global conflict is shifting the focus from climate change and its impending threat to humanity.
Alakija’s article brings to the fore the still hotly-debated issue of climate change and its role in fuelling global conflict.
Climate change has seen inaction and scepticism from prestigious and influential figures is a global issue and the UNICEF ambassador over the years has championed the need for greater awareness for climate change in the private and public sectors.
In the write up, Alakija noted that to date, all institutional reports on the National Determined Contributions (NDCs) and climate change policies implemented to transform development trajectories for sustainable growth haven not been sufficient to mitigate this global crisis.
“Climate change is a global problem, thus requiring global co-operation and multilateralism from all stakeholders. The geopolitical climate today is not only delaying, but it is destructing any progress that has been made. Increase in global political crises from unbridled nationalist leaders, to brutal hostility towards immigration from ultra-nationalist parties, is causing our world to become more segregated by the day at a time we need solidarity more than ever before.
“Today we observe global growth emerging with hateful and violent extremism, with serious neo-Nazi movements of Europe to permutations of white supremacy and toxic nationalism that plagues US politics,” she writes.
She notes that numerous factors contribute to the delay,pointing out that there is one aspect that is setting back progress more than anything else – global conflict.
Alakija recently launched the Social Accelerator for a Green Economy (SAGE) Innovation Centre, an initiative that empowers entrepreneurs to build and scale bold solutions to fight climate change.
The center focuses on five key economic sectors: energy efficiency and renewable energy; solar power; climate-smart agriculture; domestic waste management; water management and purification.
In addition to her advocacy work, Nazanin Alakija has also contributed to the development of solar paneled boreholes through WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) and UNICEF (United National Children Fund) in different parts of North East Nigeria.
Modupe Gbadeyanka