Evaluating Corporate Reporting Obligations under Nigeria’s 2021 Climate Change Act: Corporate Compliance Challenges and Strategic Measures (Published)
The 2015 Paris Agreement mandates member states to reduce the global temperature increase to below 2°C. In 2021, Nigeria committed to this mandate and enacted its first climate-focused statute, the 2021 Climate Change Act. The Act requires businesses to appoint Climate Change Officers and submit annual reports consistent with the National Carbon Budget Plan. The Act seeks to institutionalize climate actions and incorporate environmental sustainability into business practices. However, debates exist whether this current regulatory framework on climate change is sufficient to ensure businesses effectively comply with their reporting obligations under the Act. Therefore, this paper analyzes the Climate Change Act and existing scholarship on corporate compliance and climate accountability to determine whether there are regulatory gaps, institutional, and technical factors that may hinder reporting compliance under Nigeria’s Climate Change Act. The paper argues that corporate reporting compliance with the Act may be ineffective due to statutory ambiguity, inadequate technical capacity, limited corporate awareness, sector-specific complexities, poor corporate governance culture, and restricted access to climate incentives and finance. The study further argues for clearer statutory language, technical capacity building, robust corporate awareness, sector-specific reporting mechanisms, and incentive-based regulation to encourage effective corporate compliance that supports Nigeria’s 2060 net-zero target.The paper builds on existing literature on corporate environmental governance in developing economies. The paper further provides a conceptual analysis of the Act’s compliance framework and its implications for corporate climate governance in Nigeria. The paper’s analysis contributes to existing debates on corporate climate governance and emphasizes the need for more practicable compliance mechanisms to support Nigeria’s 2060 net-zero emissions target.
Keywords: Challenges, Nigeria’s 2021 climate change act: corporate compliance, corporate reporting obligations, strategic measures
A Critical Analysis of the Challenges Faced by Residents in London Borough of Brent in Obtaining Social Housing (Published)
Social housing’ has become an urgent and important topic of discussion in London Borough of Brent. In England and Wales the social welfare system has been in existence for many years and the public housing system also is mature. However, in recent times the supply of social housing has basically dried up, requiring a significant investment to build, and/or bring into use, on average 50,000 additional homes, in order to stop the decline and meet the 10% annual increase in housing demand. The gap between the rich and poor is considerably large, and is still increasing; many people with low income cannot afford their own houses since the minimum down-payment requirement is increasingly high. This explorative research provides an overview of ‘Social housing’ in London Borough of Brent in order to find out some applicable policy suggestions for the Borough’s housing system. Results of analysis show that current housing status in Brent reflects some of the general housing difficulties faced by residents across the country particularly London, in that, for one, it takes a long time for a householder to achieve down payment on their target property in order to assume full house ownership due to inflated house price and difficulty of mortgage market since the banking crises.
Keywords: Borough of Brent, Challenges, Social Housing, residents
A Critical Analysis of the Challenges Faced By Residents in London Borough of Brent in Obtaining Social Housing (Published)
‘Social housing’ has become an urgent and important topic of discussion in London Borough of Brent. In England and Wales the social welfare system has been in existence for many years and the public housing system also is mature. However, in recent times the supply of social housing has basically dried up, requiring a significant investment to build, and/or bring into use, on average 50,000 additional homes, in order to stop the decline and meet the 10% annual increase in housing demand. The gap between the rich and poor is considerably large, and is still increasing; many people with low income cannot afford their own houses since the minimum down-payment requirement is increasingly high. This explorative research provides an overview of ‘Social housing’ in London Borough of Brent in order to find out some applicable policy suggestions for the Borough’s housing system. Results of analysis show that current housing status in Brent reflects some of the general housing difficulties faced by residents across the country particularly London, in that, for one, it takes a long time for a householder to achieve down payment on their target property in order to assume full house ownership due to inflated house price and difficulty of mortgage market since the banking crises.
Keywords: Borough of Brent, Challenges, Social Housing, residents
ASSESSMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND HUMAN CHALLENGES IN THE NIGER-DELTA REGION OF NIGERIA (Published)
This study which benefits from reconnaissance surveys and recent literature on spatial degradation examines the environmental and anthropogenic challenges in the Niger-Delta Region of Nigeria. It argues that the visible environmental restrictions posed by hydro-climatic, vegetal, and geomorphic related occurrences are not significant to prohibit the development of the region. Specifically, the study observes that anthropogenic activities which strongly defied sound environmental principles are accountable for the protracted spate of environmental pollution, cycle of underdevelopment, unemployment, widespread poverty, occurrence of diseases, and human rights violations in the Niger-Delta Region of Nigeria. Based on its findings, the study recommends a number of realistic measures to reposition the region towards the path of sustainable development. These measures include urgent remediation of vastly polluted environment, routine monitoring of the region using satellite remote sensing, adequate infrastructural provisions matched with effective maintenance culture, amendments of mineral derivation, control and utilization laws, provision of reliable jobs to the immediate communities, and harnessing of hydro-climatic resources for permanent safety of the region’s infrastructures. These measures require the integrated efforts of different environmental experts and authentic cooperation of indigenous communities, crude oil industries and the federal government of Nigeria to succeed.
Keywords: Challenges, Crude oil Pollution, Environmental, Human, Mitigation Measures