A Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Climate Change Sustainable Development (CSDevNet), on Thursday urged the Federal Government to include Civil Society Organisations in the forthcoming Climate Change negotiation talks in Paris, France.
Mr Atayi Babs, the National Network Coordinator of CSDevNet, made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.
Babs said the role of the civil society in the climate change advocacy and negotiation process would be that of `naming and shaming.’
He said that the group would be able to advocate for issues that may be too sensitive for government officials to handle due to diplomatic reasons.
“If the CSOs are aware about some of these positions, they can amplify the position using the media to do so. Also, we know that no government in the world has the resources and funds it needs to sponsor the required delegates to the conference.
“Nigeria CSOs look forward to working with the Federal Ministry of Environment to increase the capacity of delegates to the climate change negotiations. They should be able to recognise that they have limited funds to send the number of delegates they require for the negotiation but can leverage on the civil societies.
“They (CSOs) can cover some of these meetings on their behalf and send reports to them,’’ the coordinator said.
According to him, Nigeria always has high number of CSOs delegates attending some international conferences through other platforms.
He expressed dismay that so far, the government had not fully tap the strength of the CSOs to push forward issues of interest to Nigeria.
“We cannot achieve our COP 21 goals or any development goal without a concurrent and steady relationship with the CSOs and media. We are not asking for sponsorship but technical inclusiveness and regular briefing on the preparations of the country to attend the meeting.“
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