The International Working Group for Petroleum Pollution and Just Transition calls for solidarity and collaboration for climate justice at launch event in New York
The International Working Group on Petroleum Pollution and Just Transition in the Niger Delta (IWG) was officially launched at Ford Foundation offices during New York Climate Week 2025. The IWG was established to advance the recommendations of the Bayelsa State Oil and Environmental Commission’s landmark report, ‘An Environmental Genocide’. This report laid bare the devastating scale of oil pollution in Bayelsa and the wider Niger Delta and called for urgent action to hold International Oil Companies accountable.
The IWG brings together former Commission members, Nigerian civil society, and international partners to implement the Bayelsa report’s 10 recommendations – focusing on environmental remediation, accountability for International Oil Companies (IOCs), and a just, people-centred energy transition. The urgency of this work is heightened by IOCs’ ongoing divestment from onshore assets in Nigeria, which amounts to an attempt to avoid any of the liabilities associated with IOC operations over many decades, and to abandon any responsibility to the communities whose environment and health have been devastated.
The aim of the launch event in New York was raise global awareness of the IWG’s work, which has been ongoing since 2023, to foster peer learning and partnerships with those working on justice-focused energy transition within the Niger Delta and across global contexts. It aimed to deepen understanding of the divestment issue in particular as well as elevating frontline views and experiences of those most affected by the pollution crisis in Bayelsa. The event also sought to reinforce collaboration with the Bayelsa State Government, represented by Governor Douye Diri, to ensure implementation of the Commission’s recommendations.
Most importantly, by staging a dynamic and informative event, involving both music, poetry and an expert panel discussion, the IWG sought to use this event to inspire action among an audience of climate campaigners, NGO practitioners, funders, allied policymakers, and academic partners to adopt and champion a people-centred just energy transition, using Bayelsa as the case study.
Highlights of the launch event included poetry and testimonies from Reverend Nnimmo Bassey, Professor Nduka Otiono, Professor Engobo Emeseh, and HRM King Bubaraye Dakolo who brought to life the human, ecological and societal toll of oil pollution.
There was also a panel discussion with Engobo Emeseh, Alex Doukas from the Polluter Pays Project, Doctor Anthony Bebbington from Ford Foundation, Lanre Suraju from HEDA Resource Centre, and Nmimmo Bassey. Speakers highlighted how oil companies systematically externalise costs – spills, flaring, health impacts, environmental destruction – while communities bare the burden. They stressed the need to disrupt the divestment ‘playbook’ and instead centre justice, remediation, and accountability through advocacy, litigation and international collaboration.
A special address by Governor Douye Diri of Bayelsa State reaffirmed his commitment to implementing the Commission’s recommendations and supporting a path toward restoration and just transition.
The event ended with a message of hope from Isaac ‘Asume’ Asuoka who highlighted that the urgent work of the IWG cannot happen in isolation and called for those present to join the IWG as they seek to clean-up Bayelsa and change the narrative on divestment. He thanked the Ford Foundation for their continued support to the IWG.