The Society for Planet Prosperity (SPP) in alliance with Capital Partners and Climate Advisers Network( GCA) Berlin has implemented a project aiming at mapping out 10 key measures with a commitment for the next five years to setting off a socio-economic transformation as Nigerians target net zero emissions by 2060.
The Director of Society for Planet Prosperity and principal investigator, Prof. Chukwumerije Okereke, made this known while briefing reporters on Monday in Abuja.
Okereke said addressing these measures would also tackle the issues of climate change and as well create jobs, likewise diversifing the economy.
Titled “Top 10 Measures for Nigeria to Reach Net Zero” and founded by the European Climate Foundation, he said the organization would continue to advocate and call on government’s attention to create a clear policy that Nigeria can leverage on, adding that climate change causes a lot of challenges as well as opportunities.
The director of SPP revealed that Nigeria could generate power through the sun for the country’s consumption and Africa adding that Nigeria had a lot of mineral resources for the green transition.
He further urged the government to place priority on climate change.
Okereke said the project would analyze the key policy instruments and activities with the Nigerian climate change mitigation programmes that would assist the government’s plans to achieve the net-zero target by 2060.
He added the project would also support all the policies and activities of the government to mitigate the challenges of climate change in the country.
“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 NDC, 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.
He explained that series of stakeholders’ engagement and both online and offline survey on the rating of the 33 identified measures followed the emergence of the top 10 measures.
The measures are as follow:
“A strong focus on generating renewable electricity both on and off-grid (minimum of 30% of on-grid electricity from renewables).
“Elimination of diesel and gasoline generators for electricity generation by 2030.
“Plant 300 million trees [this decade] and promote Agro-forestry, reforestation and afforestation, including community-based forest management and recovery.
“End (associated) gas flaring by 2030, and reduce wood cooking from the current 72% of the population to 20% of the population by 2030 / introducing clean cooking into 30 million households.
“Embark on the construction of 300,000 green homes in the next 12 months and 1.5 million over the next 5 years and a modal shift in transport by realizing a shift of passengers to Bus Rapid Transport (BRT); backed up by enforcement of emissions standards in vehicles.
“End landfilling of untreated waste and transit into properly designed and managed landfills with state-of-the-art gas collection, and increase the amount of irrigated land (ha) using renewable energy for pumping from 24.35% to 100% (and associated increase use of off-grid power in communities).
“Consistent economy-wide Energy Efficiency improvements (-50% from 2015 baseline) Examples are reducing electricity transmission losses and replacing 4 million incandescent bulbs with Tubular Fluorescent Lamps (TFLs) or Light-emitting Diodes (LEDs), equipment standards.
“Landscape-scale restoration and recharging of the Lake Chad basin. 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.”
However, “these 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,” he stated.
Also, Obi Ugochukwu, CEO, GCA, Capital Partners and Climate Adviser Network said the measures were relevant in each of the documents, adding that the documents had common goals among the recommendations.
Meanwhile, Mr. Oghenemere Edwin Orugbo, Executive Director of SPP, said the measures were according to Nigeria`s circumstances, adding that each country had its own circumstances.