A statement by the Senior Special Assistant
to the President on Media and Publicity (Office of the Vice President), Laolu
Akande said global agencies and potential financial partners would attend the
meeting to facilitate the activation of the Voluntary Carbon Market in Nigeria
and on the African continent.
Akande said participants at the meeting
include the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet, GEAPP; UN-Sustainable
Energy for All, SEforALL; the UN’s Economic Commission for Africa and the U.N.
Climate Change High-Level Champions, all of whom have been advocating and
actively planning for the African Carbon Market Initiative.
He says, “The high-level meeting which
holds on Friday will also be attended by officials from the US government and
will explore potential opportunities which carbon markets offer to generate
resources for clean energy transitions while accelerating economic growth in
Nigeria and other African countries.
“Ahead of the high-level meeting on Friday,
Professor Osinbajo will interact tomorrow (Thursday) with some of the agencies
with whom the Nigerian Government has been engaging on the Energy Transition
Plan and the activation of the Voluntary Carbon Market including GEAPP and
Bloomberg Philanthropies.
“An International Steering Committee is
driving the activation of African Carbon
Markets in Africa, under the auspices of the African Carbon Market Initiative.
Members of the Committee include the Nigerian Vice President, former President
of Colombia, Ivan Duque Marquez, officials of the United Nations, United States
Agency for International Development, USAID; Gates Foundation among others.
Akande recalled that President Muhammadu
Buhari had announced ‘Nigeria’s commitment to net-zero by 2060 on the basis of
a detailed Energy Transition Plan (ETP),’ in his COP26 statement.
“At COP27 in a speech delivered on the
President’s behalf by Nigeria’s Minister of Environment, Mohammed Hassan
Abdullahi, he indicated that ‘the public finance urgently needed to fund energy
transitions and climate action is lacking – a situation compounded by debt
distress affecting many low and middle-income countries. We are therefore
taking bold steps to pioneer innovative climate finance instruments such as
debt for climate swaps; and championing the development of the African carbon
market initiative,” he said.
According to the ACMI, launched last month
at COP27 in Egypt, there are clear indications “that Nigeria could mobilize
$600 – 800 million per annum in capital by 2030 (assuming the current average
price of $20 per ton of carbon) from Voluntary Carbon Markets and potentially
support 3-5 million jobs over the energy transition period.
Vice President Osinbajo is the Chair of the
FG’s Energy Transition Plan Working Group, a multi-ministerial team set up by
President Buhari to implement the ETP.
In its statement on the high-level meeting
in New York, The Rockefeller Foundation noted “Nigeria’s leadership on the
African continent and the global stage,” and praised the Vice President’s “bold
voice advocating for carbon market as a solution to simultaneously accelerate
economic development and address the effects of Climate Change in Africa.”
The Vice President departed Hanoi, Vietnam
on Wednesday and he is on his way to the New York meeting.