Today, climate change as well as its effect on the world’s environments and on people has grown significantly worse. Climate change leads to storms, heat waves, droughts, and Greenland is predicted to vanish in the future. Humans contribute to climate change via deforestation, providing power to buildings, and manufacturing goods in industrial factories. Most importantly, coal burning is a predominant factor in the current climate crisis. The immense damage coal burning has incurred on the poor Nigerian working class is a cardinal sin that has been committed way too many times by the Nigerian government. I am focusing on Nigeria as opposed to other coal-burning countries because a significant portion of the country’s population resides in the country’s rural environment. Power plants and coal mining factories tend to be closest to the rural sector of Nigeria, meaning pollution from coal burning can easily seep into lakes or rivers in this type of natural environment. Nigeria’s rural environment is also less infrastructurally developed than its metropolis city, Lagos, thus, the Nigerian people do not have the access to adequate public healthcare if they suffer from respiratory illness caused by the effects of coal burning.
Coal is a fossil fuel frequently burned in Nigeria to generate thermal electricity, among other things. However, it degrades Nigeria’s environment in total. This leads to damage to different ecosystems, loss of crops, and the dispersing of heavy toxic metals which get into local rivers. Moreover, the abundantly assorted effects of coal-burning spark lower-respiratory medical complications that harm the poorer Nigerian social class, subsequently leading to tainted food and water, and, in some cases, death. If we simply neglect to act upon this global predicament, then climate change could become even more fatal to people and to the environment.
To be able to fully understand the major issue of coal-burning in Nigeria and its contribution to climate change, one must first conceptualize that the impacts of coal-burning cause environmental issues for the poor. This includes damage to terrestrial/aquatic ecosystems leading to crop failures and the spread of toxic minerals from the burning which infect rivers. Head of Mineral Extraction Department, Deniz Mamurekli, of the ResearchGate article, “Environmental impacts of coal mining and coal utilization in the UK,’’ believes that coal-burning naturally segues into deforestation and soil erosion in the agricultural lands that the poor reside in. The individual effects of coal burning each have their destructive results on the environment for the poor. “Coal burning causes the destruction of groundwater regimes and rearranging the water tables,” Mr. Mamurekli wrote. He states how the process of coal burning produces environmental hazards such as pollution and sulfuric acids in the air such as acid rain.
In addition, pollution from coal-burning seeps into freshwater supplies such as lakes and rivers in the rural regions occupied by the poor. As a result of the harm of coal burning to land and water, crops planted by farmers are contaminated; burning coal reduces the amount of food and water the poor can rely on. This leads to famines and hunger.
Coal burning directly impacts the poor as well, as it leads to lower-respiratory medical complications. Journalist Hyellai Titus Pona in the Heliyon article “Environmental health situation in Nigeria: current status and future needs’’ believes that the root factor of the poor Nigerian class being susceptible to lower-respiratory health issues is due to air pollution stimulated by coal burning. “According to the world health data report, most of the highest-ranked causes of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) in Nigeria are related to environmental risk factors,’’ Mrs. Pona wrote. “The lower respiratory infection associated with air pollution has advanced from the 4th in 2007 to the highest ranked cause of death in 2017, other predominant causes of death associated with environmental risk factors include chronic respiratory diseases, cardiovascular diseases, enteric infections, diarrheal diseases, and communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional disease, which has resulted in approximately 800 thousand deaths and 26 million people living with DALYs per annum in Nigeria.’’ With the utilization of statistical evidence, she describes one of the greatest impacts of coal burning, which is airborne pollution. The poorer class suffers death from pollution-related disease/sickness instigated by coal burning.
Fortunately, there has been action taken by the Nigerian government to mitigate the issue of coal burning in Nigeria. There is the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, which strives to reduce black carbon emissions in Nigeria by 83% in 2030 and reduce methane emissions by 61%. As a result, this would save an estimated 7,000 innocent lives from premature death due to air pollution. Furthermore, in 2004, the Nigerian government ratified the Kyoto Protocol, a global treaty that sets strict limits on the amount of CO2 emissions generated by industrialized countries including China and the United States.
It is imperative that we unify to deal with the issue of coal burning swiftly. Coal burning has harmed the environment in many ways; it has led to damage to land and water areas, failed crop harvests, and the spread of toxic elements which have left the poor with issues such as inadequate access to food, lack of reliable fresh water, and noise pollution. Coal burning has also sparked respiratory illnesses which have taken a toll on Nigeria’s poor working-class population.
Climate change is a colossal international issue that has resulted in detrimental events to people such as health issues and contamination of sustenance. Coal burning is a major factor that drives climate change and the effects of coal burning have been most dominantly witnessed in Nigeria. However, if we, as a society, take allegiance to combat the growth of climate change and reduce carbon emissions in whatever ways we are able to do so, then perhaps innocent lives can be saved. If we choose to not act upon coal burning now, then the nations of this world will be guided to unrepairable social, political, and economic instability.
