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From Adewale Sanyaolu, Calgary, Canada
The Federal Government has expressed regrets over the failure of global leaders to keep to promises of investing about $10 billion towards the net-zero/ energy transition target of Nigeria by 2060.
Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Mr. Gabriel Aduda, stated this during a Ministerial Roundtable at the ongoing World Petroleum Congress(WPC) in Calgary, Canada, on the topic ‘What Does The Energy Transition Mean for your Country’.
Aduda said various global leaders had at the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland in 2021 made various commitments totalling about $10 billion to aid the country’s agenda when Nigeria committed to target net-zero by 2060 with conditions.
‘‘The truth of the matter is that promises where made as to have initial injection of $10 billion was going to be done but l seat here to tell you that not a cent has been moved,’’.
He explained that part of the conditions was that transition to renewable does not come cheap and one of the things that Nigeria is not shy to say is that ‘‘we do not have the finances to get it done’’, adding that , if Nigeria is going to achieve net zero by 2060, it means that there is going to be a lot of financial injection into the system from our end and of course with support from across the world and especially those that are responsible for heavy emissions.
‘‘Now these issues were agreed to and promises were made at COP26 but how much of these promises have being fulfilled? The truth is that, Africa still sees huge financial exclusion when it comes to the issue of climate change and we have always said it and the numbers are clear.
In 2021, 2022, $600 billion dollars of green burns were generated but less than 0.26 per cent came to Africa, when we made this commitment at COP26 His Excellency, the then president said we will need in the very beginning about $10 billion with a target of $410 billion till 2060,’’.
According to him, a larger chunk of these funds will have with funding of infrastructure, especially gas infrastructure across Nigeria.
The Permanent Secretary boasted that Africa is the most compliant continent that we have on the face of the earth today when it comes to renewable because we have being able to prove that no other continent that has gotten so close to where African is when it comes to the use of renewables.
He maintained that out of the 54 countries in Africa, we have close to 30 that have one form of renewable energy or the other.
For instance, he said Kenya has 70 per cent of renewables and quite a number of other countries can also boast of range around 40 per cent.
‘‘But what we have being able to put in place is to say that look with all aggregate put together across all continent, no other continent is as compliant as African is and yet Africa is the least emitter of this hydrocarbons or contributor to this climate issues that we are dealing with.
But more importantly, what does energy transition mean to us as a country, a lot. We totally understand that we are a very rich country in natural resources and our very strength is in gas, which in Nigeria is even much more than crude deposit.
The proven quantum of gas that we have is about 260TCF with the potential for more. Now we have identified gas in Nigeria as our transition fuel, and we have tried to rally round in all our policies and everything we need to see that we work within a framework that allows us to push domestic injection of gas across Nigeria and of course across Africa, Because we have always exported gas , NLNG, name it, and we are still working that we reach out with our deposit to other Africa countries and even beyond,’’.
