Climate Change: Nigerians To Benefit From Carbon Trading

The Director General, National Council on Climate Change in Nigeria, Dr Salisu Dahiru says Carbon Trading is not going to be limited to the Council alone, but to all other Ministries Departments and Agencies, MDA’s that are interested in pursuing project that can earn carbon credit.

He stated this at the validation workshop for the Assessment of Carbon Pricing Initiatives in Nigeria, held in Abuja the Nation’s capital.

He also said that Sub-Nationals, States, Local government across the country and the private sectors are to also benefit in the project.

“As far as Nigeria is concern Carbon Trading Scheme is an aspect of our National policy and also our National priority to put in place all the measure needed to address our mitigation challenges, more importantly our adaptation challenges in the country, we are very familiar with the flooding that happened in the country last year, this year we are seeing signs of flooding, this time around not only in the riverine areas but here in Abuja, which tends to highlights the fact that nobody can escape the impact of Climate Change,” Dr Dahiru said.

He also noted that the Nigerian government had released the first initial regulatory guidance two weeks ago.

He emphasized the need for the eventual Trading Scheme in Nigeria to be tailored towards the priority of the government to ensure that they are aligned with the Nationally Determined Contributions, NDC’s as contained in the Paris Agreement.

Opportunities In Climate Change

Dr Dahiru said that Nigeria was fully positioned to take advantage of the opportunities in Climate Change mitigation and adaptation.

‘’Not only for us or for the government to be investing but also for the private sector to see the potentialities of making what is always at the forefront for the private sector profits from the Carbon Trading as the opportunity emerges,’’ he stated.

He further stressed that the workshop was one of the foundational work in order to prepare Nigeria in participating in the Emission Trading Scheme of which the process has already began.

‘’There are a number of building blocks that needs to be prepare for this purpose and this workshop is one of them, this workshop is something that has been ongoing today is the validation process so that we here in Nigeria, that will be involved in this process become fully familiar with the process and understand them and also make our own input.

‘’The situation whereby the ongoing Carbon Trading Scheme that are all over the place are been done without recourse to the designated National authority for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC, in Nigeria has to stop, we will ensure that every opportunity for harvesting emission reduction certificates from ongoing activities in Nigeria are linked to our NDC’s because that is what the Paris Agreement said, and that is what we intend to follow, we want to take full advantage opportunity and make the necessary investment along our priority target contained in the NDC’s and our net Zero target,’’  he explained.

Carbon Pricing

Representative of the West Africa Alliance on Carbon Markets and Climate Finance, Mr Mbaye Diagne said that Carbon Pricing was one of the most efficient instrument to reduce emissions.

He noted that the validation of the study was very important for Nigeria because having an instrument in a country would also be impacted in the regional community because Nigeria is part of the ECOWAS.

Mr Diagne said Carbon pricing would also help to support adaption measure and poverty eradication.

“It’s a very long process that required not only a very long political will but also full participation of all stakeholders, I hope that today’s meeting will lay the foundation for the start of the process in Nigeria. It will also provide an opportunity to assess the a vast position in Nigeria and the possibility offered by the Carbon pricing in the implementation in the reporting of the NDC’s and providing opportunities to the private sector,” he said.

According to him “The study aims to define what is the best estimate for Nigeria and it is very important that after consultants have developed and conducted the study, the stakeholders will implement all the measures that will be subject to the implication of the different instruments to be chosen by the government.”

Regional lead, RCC-Lome United Nations Climate Change Secretariat, Mr Walters Tubua urged the stakeholders to work diligently to ensure that the work done must be aligned with Nigeria Nationally Determined Contributions, NDC’s needs and priorities.

“So we asked all of you to feel free to engaged and to know that whatever is going to come out from here must be driven by all of you seated here, no one will cone and determine the outcome of this meeting for you, the timing of this workshop is coming at the very important process under UNFCCC, the outcome of the recommendation should be very useful in shaping what you will table as the next NDC’s for Nigeria comes 2025.”

Allign With Paris Agreement

He tasked the stakeholders to ensure that the choices being made must be aligned with the Paris Agreement.

“The choices you will make here today should be consistence with what the Nigerian government ratified under the Paris Agreement, any choice you make should lead to lowering the emission, poverty alleviation, sustainable development by these we are making choices that will leads to long term choices that are durable and capable of environmental needs,” he added.

Carbon trade is the buying and selling of credits that permits a company or other entity to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide.

The value of the carbon is based on the ability of the country to store it or to prevent it from being released into the  atmosphere.

 

 

Confidence Okwuchi