The Executive Secretary of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Tony Ojukwu, SAN, has called on governments and other stakeholders to mainstream human rights into their responses to climate change.

Mr Ojukwu made the call on Tuesday in Abuja while speaking to journalists at the opening of a three-day training of the commission’s staff members on climate change.

The training with the theme ‘Human Rights and Climate Change’ was organised by NHRC in partnership with the Danish Institute for Human Rights and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.’

Mr Ojukwu noted that human activities were responsible for contributing to the impact of climate change.

He said the training became very important for staff members to enable them to link climate change to human rights, identifying when it affects or offends human rights.

Mr Ojukwu said climate change is connected with human rights.

“We can see that the temperature levels are also changing. The farming season is changing and so on and so forth.

“Now, when we talk about climate change, we are looking at what the human rights impact is. What are the impacts on the human rights of the people?

“For instance, if they are getting through heat, people may get uncomfortable. People may now have to go to hospital. If there is flooding, people may have their houses destroyed and they will lose their property,” he said.

He noted that people may get sick because the flooding may bring with it some waterborne diseases, noting that these were health issues.

He added that these affect their rights to life and their rights to good health and livelihoods, adding that businesses would be destroyed and these were climate change implications.

Mr Ojukwu said as an institution established for the promotion and protection of human rights, it’s their duty to care about how climate change affects the people.

“Now that these changes are coming, we train our staff members and sensitise them because there are going to be new complaints coming to them every day, arising from issues connected to climate change.

“So, as an institution, we are trying to get ready to face the kind of complaints we are going to get as a result of complaints relating to human rights violations arising from climate change. Our message to governments is that we need to mainstream human rights into government responses to climate change, and they need to carry the human rights commission along.

“They need to carry human rights experts so that we can see the far-reaching implications, not only the physical, you know, but the human rights implications, because the rights of people are going to be impacted,” he said.

Mr Ojukwu said the government should take a holistic study to approach climate change-related challenges.

He said this means that human rights should be mainstreamed into government’s responses and plans in respect to climate change.

In addition, he said the government should have a national policy on climate change, which must be reviewed to have human rights mainstreamed into it.

“So, the life and rights of the people will be protected by the policy,” he said.

Speaking virtually, Chief Advisor at the Danish Institute for Human Rights, Maria Poppins, said they were partnering with NHRC because of the importance of the subject matter involved.

“So, as we know, climate change is already undermining development gains and rights fulfilment, including all economic, social and cultural rights.

“In the light of the seriousness of the bleak climate projections, it’s quite disheartening to follow the slow pace of the global climate negotiations and the emissions reductions.

“So, in these two days, the focus will be on the role that the NHRC can play in saving the communities who are the most severely affected and also have the least to say in how climate policies are formulated and how agencies are assigned,” she said.

She hoped that each one would feel inspired and empowered to address the challenges posed by climate change to the realisation of human rights in Nigeria.

(NAN)