Stakeholders To Meet Nigeria’s Net-Zero Emission Targets

Stakeholders in the environmental sector has reiterated its commitment to assist the Nigerian government to achieve its emission reduction target.

The Society for Planet Prosperity (SPP) in collaboration with GCA Capital Partners and Climate Advisers Network (Berlin) made this commitment at the implementation project titled “Top Eleven Measures for Climate change in Nigeria to Reach Net Zero.”

The President Society for Planet and Prosperity, Professor Chukwumerije Okeke while briefing journalists in Abuja the nation’s capital said in selecting the top eleven measures, the SPP engaged with senior experts from the government, the private sector, trade unions, civil society organisations, academia and think tanks in the media, and international development partners.

He said that the aim of the project was to map out key steps and decisions to be taken in the next five years would trigger a socio-economic transformation necessary in meeting the Nigerian government’s net zero objective.

 “To achieve the aim and objectives of the project, key stakeholders ranging from government MDAs, think tanks, civil society organisations, media practitioners and others were engaged in rating all 33 measures identified by the project team from different government policies such as the 2021 updated Nationally Determined Contributions NDC’s, the Long-Term Vision for the Low Emission Development Strategy, the Medium-Term National Development Plan, the Appropriations bill, the Nigeria Economic Sustainability Plan, the Nigeria Climate Policy, the Energy Transition Plan, and the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning-Climate Finance Strategy,” he said.

Professor further said the measures if implemented in the next five years, would underpin a socio-economic transformation required to enable Nigeria to meet the government’s 2060 net-zero objective announced at COP26 in Glasgow.

“After series of stakeholders’ engagement and both online and offline survey on the rating of the 33 identified measures, the following measures emerged as the top 10 measures: (1) a strong focus on generating renewable electricity both on and off-grid minimum of 30% of on-grid electricity from renewables, (2) elimination of diesel and gasoline generators for electricity generation by 2030, (3) plant 300 million trees and promote Agro-forestry, reforestation and afforestation, including community-based forest management and recovery, (4) end associated gas flaring by 2030,(5) reduce wood cooking from the current 72% of the population to 20% of the population by 2030 introducing clean cooking into 30 million households, (6) embark on the construction of 300,000 green homes in the next 12 months and 1.5 million over the next 5 years, amongts others, a rough calculation indicates that these measures could result in emission reduction of about 174.01 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent by 2030, similar to fossil emissions of Algeria or Iraq in 2021.”

According to him ; “the report, prioritized measures that if implemented jointly over the next 5 years would significantly positively impact the ability of Nigeria to embark on a low-emission development pathway to a net-zero emission includes, A strong focus on generating renewable electricity both on and off-grid.”

Implement the eleven steps

The Chief Executive officer Lead Climate Finance and Strategy, Mr, Obi Ogochukwu, however urged the Nigerian government to implement the eleven steps to achieve the net-zero emission.

The top 10 measure for Nigeria to reach net zero project, funded by the European Climate Foundation, lasted for 10 months with Professor. Chukwumerije Okereke, the Director, Society for Planet Prosperity as the principal investigator.

The Project, if implemented was expected to reduce Nigeria’s carbon emissions and save the country from facing the dangers of Climate change.

Lateefah Ibrahim