Environmental security is one of the greatest concerns of the modern world and governments, due to havocs caused to the earth and its atmosphere majorly by human activities.

Green House Gases emitted into the atmosphere and pollution of the land by companies had gotten to a level, there is an international consensus for these contributors to be made to pay for the havocs.

On the local front, a Ghanaian non-profitable organisation, Vision or Alternative Development (VALD) is equally calling on the government to be proactive in its decisions to make big any company found polluting the environment, pay heavy fines for the negligence.

Labram M. Musah, Programmes Director of VALD at a media conference last week, said there is a Global Climate Justice Coalition that has released a liability roadmap on September 22, 2020 to help countries to compel big polluters to pay for their deeds.

According to him, “the liability roadmap is a practical tool that seeks to make big polluters pay for the destruction they have and continue to perpetrate on our planet due to the climate crisis they have fueled.”

This was as their pollution activities are affecting the health and wellbeing of many, especially the poor and vulnerable.

The climate crises affects everyone rich and poor, developed and developing nations, therefore, the time to put an end to climate injustice is now, he said.

Mr Musah indicated Climate Justice Activists are mobilizing signatures to press home their demands that governments in the African continent to take them seriously and hold big polluters liable and make them pay.

“The sign-on letter details the fact that transnational corporations have for decades misled the world about the consequences of their products and business practices, exploited local communities, seized our lands and resources, and taken control of our food systems—all for their own benefit,” he added.

This call is already having an impact—in June, two jurisdictions in the United States—Minnesota and Washington D.C.—filed lawsuits against fossil fuel industry actors including Chevron, Shell, BP and Exxon Mobil. 

From Nigeria’s Niger Delta where fossil fuel extraction has led to dead fish littering the coastlines, to South Africa where tribal lands have been poisoned by coal mining, are evidence that abound for the big polluters to be held accountable.

Another classic example is the Cyclone Idai –among the worst tropical storm to visit Africa- as a result of warm sea, which can be connected global warming and climate change.

He said though the epicentre was in central Mozambique, it left a trail of destruction in Madagascar, Malawi and Zimbabwe killing at least 1,303 people and affected more than 3 million others. 

After that, there has been the worst drought in South Africa’s in 1000 years on by diminished rainfall, the apocalyptic locust attacks in Kenya and Uganda that now threatens food security in East Africa, and many more happenings which are strange to the African continent.

Richard Martey, an environmental activist, said Ghana has already started experiencing the negative impacts of the fossil fuel project at the Cape 3 Point.

He communities around the Cape 3 Point had been greatly affected, as the areas they fish have been limited and by that it is impoverishing the people more than they used to be.

Mr Martey added that shoreline erosion is an evidence of how these big polluters are impacting the environment negatively.

By Akutu Dede Adimer