Every country of the world is now aware of, if not considering, transitioning plans from the use of fossil fuels to the use of clean energy. And many countries are devising how to achieve this. As the world progresses towards this, leaders convened at the first Africa Climate Summit to position the continent as a “torchbearer” of Renewable Energy solutions. The Nairobi Declaration emanated from this summit. In it, African leaders agreed to focus the development of their economies on green growth, reduce their carbon Emissions and prevent the world from plunging into a climate catastrophe.
Speaking on how productive the summit has been, Salisu Dahiru, director-general of the National Climate Change Council (NCCC), spoke about the summit in an interview at the Kenyatta International Convention Center (KICC) in Nairobi with news correspondents. He said that the discussions have been very relaxed because there is no tension, and it has been highly productive as well as its scope broad and also very deep. They have discussed issues of finance, loss and damage, and some of the specifics for the countries.
Minister for Environment says Nigeria needs $17.7bn for commitments.
For Nigeria, he said that the discussions were not about the plans the country has put together but about how to get the necessary financing to support its implementation. According to him, he feels Nigeria is not getting the necessary Finance. He cited the example of Nigeria (Nationally Determined Contributions) NDC, which is subdivided into two for developing countries—conditional and unconditional. An NDC is a Climate Action plan to cut emissions and adapt to climate impacts.
Each Party to the Paris Agreement is required to establish an NDC and make sure to update it every five years. “For the entire NDC implementation, what Nigeria requires between now and 2030 is in the neighborhood of about $17 billion,” he stated. So, he said that Nigerian minister of environment has laid before participants, development partners, and the various bilateral and multilateral bodies represented at the summit the plans on how to raise the funds. While Nigeria NDC states that the country is responsible for those commitments, Dahiru said that Nigeria has probably already set in motion the processes towards realizing and raising those funds.
Many factors contribute to low financing of Nigeria climate plans.
He said that there are internal organizations like the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority that have already gone forward and kickstarted this process by putting in place some seed funds of nearly $50 million as part of the partnership between them and another institution (Vitol) that will be looking at raising funds for green projects in Nigeria. He said that it will help Nigeria achieve its NDC, the unconditional part, and at the same time provide opportunities to raise additional Revenue by way of voluntary carbon markets, and trading opportunities. Also, it will also raise additional monies or revenues that can also go into deepening and widening the scope and replicating some of the projects that Vitol, for example, will provide.
On the downside, Nigeria has not been attracting as much financing as other African countries such as South Africa and Kenya. Dahiru said that Climate Finance goes beyond an issue of demand and supply. Instead, it is an aspect of international relations as well as of investment climate. It could also sometimes be bias between the international community depending upon what their preferences are. Essentially it is a combination of many factors. Fortunately, Nigeria has elaborated its energy transition plan, mapped out the costs and made it amenable to attracting the necessary international attention.
Nigeria to phase out petrol generators as part of transition plans.
Meanwhile, the director-general said that Nigerian energy transition plan to decarbonize the country’s energy system has been articulated on a sector-by-sector basis. Being the country with the most number of portable generators that use either diesel or petrol, the focus of the transition plan is to phase out these generators. Dahiru also revealed that the plan will focus on five key sub-sectors on the transition journey, two examples of this are oil and gas. The sector will be decarbonized and Gas Flaring will be reduced by 2030.
