Three Nigerian teenagers have developed an app they believe will aid in tackling climate change.
The team has created ‘EarthExp’, a combination of information regarding environmental trends with social networking and games.
Users of the application create a city and need to consider how the environment might affect it as it develops.
One of the teen developers, Fortune Somuadia, explained the reason for creating the app, noting that a persuasive strategy to facilitate a behavioural change in the users that could spur them to build a sense of responsibility towards climate change is needed.
“We decided to get people not so fully stuck on our app, but stuck on our app enough to be able to develop a sense of action towards climate change, like developing or thinking of the fact that they can do something to relieve climate change,” she said.
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“So it’s basically to use a persuasive strategy to induce a behavioural change in our users; in return, we get positive feedback towards climate action.”
Favour Chibuike, who helped Fortune create the app, said the game includes a tree planting initiative, one of the ways to instil the importance of taking care of the environment.
“In the game, we also have a feature where if you cut one tree, you will have to plant three more trees,” she says.
“So, in the game, if you don’t take care of your environment and all that other stuff, you notice that it affects how you behave around your surroundings.”
Africa needs around $3 trillion to fulfil its self-determined emissions targets, known as nationally determined contributions, that each country must submit as part of the 2015 Paris agreement on climate, according to U.N. and Africa Development Bank estimates.
Fortune laments that, despite Africa being among the least producers of greenhouse gases, the continent is adversely impacted.
“We are actually very sceptical about it because even for the fact that Africa as a whole doesn’t emit as much greenhouse gases like the Americans and other countries, we are largely affected. So severe floods happen in Africa and heatwaves happen, we are most affected by it.”
EarthExp was a regional winner in a 2022 global competition organised by Technovation, a US-based nonprofit company empowering women and girls to utilise technology for change.
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It comes ahead of the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP27, planned to hold in November in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.
The mobile application is in addition to their campaigns in schools and around their neighbourhood, encouraging people to dispose of refuse appropriately and reduce the use of plastic.
The EarthExp app comes as African leaders intensify drives across the continent to make more industrialised nations accountable for environmental damage done to developing countries.
Recall that Nigeria’s Vice President gave on a just and equitable energy transition for Africa at the Center for Global Development in Washington D.C, proposing a Debt-For-Climate (DFC) swap deal to enable African countries to help in facilitating the course of global net-zero emissions targets and aid energy access.
The EarthExp app, along with other strides by African nations, will help in achieving the global goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 45% by 2030 and achieving net zero by 2050.