By David Agba Abuja
Th e Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) has called for public private partnership (PPP), for the reduction of post harvest losses, to develop cold hubs for fruits, vegetables and tubers and small scale processing plants. Lead Director, Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), Barrister Eze Onyekpere stated this as part of recommendations for a 2018 low carbon budgeting framework at a workshop titled ‘Sustainable Energy Framework: Promoting a low carbon fi scal framework’ in Abuja. Th e workshop was focused on Agriculture, Power and Transport sectors of the economy.
According to him, the government should stop the sequestration of a huge part of capital funds in the headquarters of the Agriculture Ministry and send them to agencies and parastatals that need them; there should be renewable energy utilization in agriculture including solar boreholes, solar lighting, drying, the development of automated solar powered agriculture machines including planters, harvesters, etc.
“Th ere should be massive tree planting and aff orestation with targets and locations for desert, erosion and food control and for promotion of carbon sinks,” he said. On Power sector he stressed the need for the government to stop budgetary investments in nuclear power considering that Nigeria neither have the technology nor capacity to run nuclear plants, especially given the fact that countries like Germany are closing down nuclear plants. Th e government should also stop budgetary investments in coal harvesting or to use coal to generate electricity. “Coalmining heavily pollutes the environment and its use to generate energy further complicates the situation through the strong emission of greenhouse gases.” On transportation Onyekpere urged the government to empower Vehicle Inspection Offi cers (VIO) and the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) with technologies and capacity to check the level of carbon emissions from vehicles and vehicles found emitting more than requisite levels should be made to undergo repairs for compliance.
