Speaker of Economic Community of West African States Parliamentarian, Hon. Sidie Tunis has called on regional leaders to create national policies on climate change so as to tackle the world’s rising temperatures in the summer.
Tunis made the call at 144th IPU Assembly on climate change in Indonesia. Theme: Getting to Zero: Mobilizing Parliaments to Act on Climate Change.
He said there’s a need to mainstream climate change in the country’s national budgets to address the unavoidable change that poses threat to human existence.
Thus urging Members of the Parliament to place more emphasis on the environment through various interventions in their respective countries and constituencies.
“In the ECOWAS region, many countries are experiencing severe droughts, deforestation, desertification, flooding, coastal erosion, disease outbreaks, famine, and food shortages because of climate change. To redress these challenges, the ECOWAS Commission, with the full participation of the ECOWAS Parliament, and other stakeholders, has drawn up a strategic program for reducing vulnerability to climate change in West Africa. The ECOWAS Commission expects Members of Parliament to be proactive and support the climate change program through sensitization campaigns on the use of renewable energy, alternative sources of charcoal and wood consumption across the region, and the formulation of laws to mitigate the negative effect of climate change.”
Tunis added that in order to achieve progress Members of the Parliament must be well equipped on climate change knowledge, adaptation, and mitigation measures to surmount the harshness of the winters and the droughts shriveling up vegetation.
“It is worth mentioning that, because treaty negotiations are an executive action, Members of Parliament are generally not involved. Upon conclusion of such negotiations, it is imperative that Members should be given an adequate briefing on the objectives, background, content, and expected outcomes of such agreements. This would foster their understanding and possible buy-in into the agreements. It would also ease ratification by the various Parliament.
However, it is now time to mobilize communities, nations, and regions, I call on all Members of parliaments across the world to come together to mobilize the necessary actions to combat this climate menace.”
