By Progress Godfrey, Abuja
The Africa Make Big Polluters Pay coalition, on Monday, launched the MBPP Storytelling Platform for African communities at the frontlines of climate change and extractive industry devastation to share their stories and experiences in pursuing climate justice.
The platform, domiciled at https://talesofafricasclimate.org/ illuminates the devastating impacts of transnational corporations’ extractive activities, debunks false solutions, and champions real and sustainable alternatives in Africa.
Modelled after a virtual fireplace, the website is a monthly digital gathering where regional MBPP partners and frontline communities will meet to share their experiences, breathing life into the struggles for climate justice, humanizing the issues and inspiring others to join the cause.
Visitors to the website will meet the people at the heart of the climate crisis, as they share their stories of resilience, resistance, and hope in the face of environmental challenges caused by corporate exploitation.
Akinbode Oluwafemi, Executive Director of CAPPA, thanked CA and MPPP coalition members across the continent for the creation of the platform to target frontline community stories across the continent.
Oluwafemi added: “We all agree that the African continent is on the frontlines of the global climate crisis. But the sad story is that many of the frontline community stories are not well articulated. They are not on the frontlines of discourse while they are on the frontlines of climate change, and if we don’t tell our stories, no one will tell them for us.
He encouraged coalition members to see the platform as theirs, adding “Contributions are welcome, and we want people to point us to stories or bring those stories to our attention.”
Hellen Neima, Corporate Accountability Africa Climate Director and Africa Make Big Polluters Pay Coordinator linked the platform to the age-long African storytelling culture.
She said: “In this modern age, in the spirit of tradition and innovation, the Africa Make Big Polluters Pay coalition has ignited a new kind of fire: a virtual fireplace for storytelling. By sharing these stories, we breathe life into our struggles for climate justice, humanizing the issues we face and inspiring others to join the cause.”
Neima noted that the coalition is an open coalition for African climate justice, partners that have the spirit of holding big polluters accountable and making them pay.
“For now, we have 14 partners and so many of these regional partners work directly with frontline communities in their different countries, and they’ve had a world of experience working with these them and holding transnational corporations to account. So, these will also be hosted on the storytelling platform to share the experiences,” Neima added.
Ndivile Mokena, of South Africa-based Gender CC – Women for Climate Justice, who unveiled the website alongside Akinbode, noted that the website would help to tell untold African stories.
“This platform is going to help to share African stories, that are less reported and remain untold. So, we will be able, as Africans, to come together, unite, stand as one, and speak in one voice, especially on issues that are affecting our environment, affecting us socially and economically. More especially now that we’re looking at what is happening in the climate change sector.
“So, issues, like adaptation and loss and damage are quite key for Africa. We must come together, and voice our opinions, views, and demands on what we want as Africa, and when we look at reparations and compensations which are very key to the continent when it comes to climate justice. So, it is important that we share what we’re going through, the struggles, how we are dehumanized by these activities that are taking place on our continent.”
Olamide Martins Ogunlade, Senior Programme Manager and head of the Climate Campaign at CAPPA urged the Global South to treat matters of climate change with utmost urgency.
He said: “Conversations around climate justice have been reduced to charity by corporations and by the countries responsible for the crisis. So, what appears as the only opportunity we have now, or the only means to agitate for commensurate compensation is the amount of evidence that we put on the table.”
That evidence, Ogunlade added, is part of what will be hosted on the platform and will be part of the basis to argue that climate justice be taken off the charity list of the Global North.
In his presentation, CAPPA’s Media Officer Robert Egbe noted that African communities were grossly disproportionately affected by climate change caused by the industrialised countries of the Global North, but had little capacity to solve the problems by themselves, hence the need for journalists to help push the African narrative for climate justice.
The launch also featured solidarity Messages from MBPP Partners across the continent.