As the nations of the world initiate transition from fossil fuel to renewable energy to mitigate the current global energy crises, Nigerians have been urged to embrace the alternative source of energy that is sustainable.
Lagos State commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi made the call, while advising churches in Nigeria to use their pulpit to drive advocacy on the need for a sustainable lifestyle.
He threw the challenge during an interview on the sideline of a one-day Conference in Lagos on ‘Journeying and Listening Together: Energy Crisis and Sustainable Lifestyle for Church and State’ which was organised by the Ecology Work Group of the catholic Archdiocese of Lagos
According to Abayomi, the church needs to become more actively involved in the gospel of sustainable lifestyle that can bring peace to the environment and guarantee abundance of food and healthy energy.
The commissioner stated that, the church has enormous influence on the people and that it is high time the church lead advocacy for the alternative sources of energy geared towards replacing fossil fuel, saying, such alternative energy included: Solar Power; Wind Energy; Hydro Energy; Biomass Energy; Tidal Energy and Geothermal Energy.
Earlier in his paper titled ‘Global Energy and Environmental Crisis’, Abayomi said, the energy crisis around the world has led to a concern that the world’s demands on the limited natural resources that are used to power industrial society are diminishing as the demand rises.
The environmental and economic effects of the situation, he highlighted, are; the increase in the energy and electricity cost with gas prices rising by about 47 per cent, increase in cost of doing business, unemployment, global warming, among others.
While calling for joint action in Africa, he disclosed that, Africa contributes four per cent of the global carbon dioxide yet most affected by the climate change as half of every 10 countries affected by extreme weather in 2019 are from Africa.
He said, the rising cost of energy is driving the use of alternative energy and that Africa is in a terrible situation as 90 per cent of the West Africa forest cover has been lost in the last 100 years and Nigeria alone loses 350,000 hectares to destruction yearly.
Also speaking, the Archbishop of Lagos, Rev martins lamented that, many activities have given rise to climate change, the consequences of which are now staring the society in the face.
He stated that the climate change has manifested itself in varied and unprecedented ways such as; heat waves that have led to the uncontrolled forest fires devastating huge swathes of land; progressing desertification; rising sea level leading to the destructive floods and landslides; chemical and technological pollution leading to depletion of biodiversity and destruction of the ecosystem.
