"Only three countries have climate change specific legislation in Africa of which Nigeria is one."
Salisu Dahiru, director-general of Nigeria's Council on Climate Change (NCCC), spoke with PREMIUM TIMES correspondent, Abdulkareem Mojeed on the sideline of the inaugural Africa Climate Summit (ACS) and Africa Climate Week (ACW), held from 4 to 6 September in Nairobi, Kenya. He explained why Nigeria participated at the summit and wahat the Nigerian government is doing to fulfil its climate change pledges as captured in the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) document submitted to the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate, being a signatory to the Paris Agreement.
Excerpts:
PT: In the statement delivered on his behalf by the Minister of State for Environment, President Bola Tinubu said Nigeria needs at least $17.7 billion annually to fulfil its NDC unconditional pledges. Are there moves being made to attract investments into the country so as to fulfil this?
Dahiru: Well, in terms of those numbers and even what Nigeria is doing, I think we are pioneering these moves in two major areas. One is looking at opportunities to attract investments-inflow for capital projects. The idea is that the majority of these efforts are coming in anticipation of what is going to be available under the Article (6) - the internationally transferred mitigation options, which provide opportunities for carbon trading and many project developers across the globe. Africa and particularly Nigeria, being the largest and the one with the most population, also provides ample opportunities for this investment.
We have also taken another bold step which most countries in Africa haven't done yet. Only three countries have climate change specific legislation in Africa of which Nigeria is one. And of these three only two have very comprehensive legislation of which Nigeria is also one, the other is Uganda. The legislation has given comfort to investors, practitioners, project developers, verifiers and also the eventual carbon market that is going to emerge.
Thirdly, Nigeria is looking inwards to raise enough capital for investment in the Green project that will earn carbon credit. We do recall that the National Council for Climate Change has entered a memorandum of understanding with two principal bodies in Nigeria - the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) and InfraCorp. These are major key players in infrastructure development and they provide very viable options to raise capital. So far, NSIA and Vitol have already launched a $50 million project development line for a voluntary carbon market project in Nigeria. That is just the first step. Other private financial institutions in the country are doing the same thing. We also recently got a mission from the Green Climate Fund which has also assured that, in addition to what the multilateral development agencies are serving us as development entities for project, they will commission and accredit Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) which will be the first in-country entity to be accredited under the Green Climate Change Fund, which also brings to the fore, opportunities that many project now within Nigeria for climate finance investment are going to come up.
The potential and journey are already looking good; we have sown the seeds and we are in the process of harvesting as a benefit. What we are doing at the summit and also at the climate change week is to further deepen the engagement that we are having with various financial organisations, development partners and with various ministries. We have had bilaterals with the delegation from the Netherlands and from the Ban Ki Moon Group, the list is endless. The honourable minister is also having very important engagement with the partners of Nigeria. This is the essence of the summit.
PT: I believe this summit is preparing Africa towards engagement in COP28. What are those solutions you think Nigeria is deriving from this summit and in subsequent summits towards addressing the issue of flooding and other environmental disasters?
Dahiru: For Africa, this summit has also provided one big opportunity, the joint declaration that African ministers have finalised and signed that will be delivered to the president today for them to endorse and take forward as Africa's position to the COP28 in Dubai in the next two and half months. We are still emphasising on the use of natural gas as a transition fuel, not only for Nigeria but other African countries. We should not be expected by virtue of the issue of loss and damage and by virtue of the issue of common but differentiated circumstances. We are definitely saying, 'do not expect us to just sleepwalk from fossil fuel to renewable energy without an appropriate consideration for the peculiar circumstances of Africa and Nigeria in particular'. We are also insisting that the issue of loss and damage should be finalised in Dubai. We are also insisting that the issue of the funds or loss and damage should also be finalised so that we will have clarity of it and also the issue of additional finance. For now in Africa, we are more interested in looking at what would happen under our natural adaptation plants. They are also looking in that direction.
PT: Are you also considering issues around accountability, transparency or maybe funds. Because some of the concerns of many people include the fact that when countries have access to the funds, they aren't properly used and lack accountability and transparency. Are there strategies being put in place, for instance in Nigeria, to access all of it?
Dahiru: Even the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) itself, in terms of reporting in the past, we were used to bi-annual update reporting. We have now migrated and all developing countries are transitioning to the new reporting system known as transparency reporting framework. We just concluded the workshop on the tools to support countries to do this bi-annual transparency reporting. The word "transparency" has been added and it won't be limited to only the actions we are taking with respect to, for instance, implementing your NDC, but actions that you are taking to actually report on your financial transactions associated with the funds for climate change action. So, one would abide by the guidelines of the UNFCCC Article (13) on this bi-annual transparency reporting to do that and for which we will not only report to our respective parliaments, because for Nigeria, this is also another general feature we have that many countries in Africa don't have. The Climate Change Act makes it mandatory for Nigeria to report to the National Assembly annually on what it has done in respect to implementing climate change actions and also the finance associated with it. So, we report to the National Assembly, the Federal Executive Council, the UNFCCC and also to the ICPC. Those ones you know can't compromise on the issue of accountability. So, no country will escape, and Nigeria is also not planning to escape that because we are subjecting ourselves to following all the guidelines and following them to the future.
PT: Can you briefly tell us where we are with the plans of our carbon trading, carbon taxing models and all of that?
Dahiru: For the carbon trading, what we have done so far is, after the commencement of the project in August last year, we have gone ahead to identify the key building blocks, which are three. The first one is the establishment of the registry, the second is the establishment of the exchange and the third is the establishment of validation processes. We have realised that for the exchange, we are aligning and joining it with the support of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to align it with the Nigerian Stock Exchange. So, all that we are doing is adding or asking the Nigeria Stock Exchange to add carbon as a commodity for trading. So, that has been agreed upon. As for the registry, we have some rudimentary registry that was in the making. That is the Red Cross Registry which commenced much earlier under the guidance of the forest carbon partnership facility and the UNRRA Programme. The remaining aspects will be those validation processes; those processes will also require some individuals that have been satisfied by the UNFCCC. Putting them together afresh in Nigeria will require a lot of time and a lot of resources. So, we are in the process of forging partnership with those that are existing either within the African shoreline or globally that are acclaimed five star validation institutions and have a framework agreement with them to work with Nigeria for two to three years after which they exit and then we continue with the Nigeria made system.
PT: Do you have plans towards improving Nigeria's agricultural traditional system into a climate friendly system to be able to avert food insecurity and also flooding? Are there any models being put in place?
Dahiru: For the records, Nigeria is not facing the threat of food security. You can see what Nigeria has done with respect to rice production. Importation of rice has reduced very drastically. So, Nigeria can feed Nigerians, not only for rice but for yam, guinea corn, maize and cassava. Cassava and crops such as sugar cane are already being used not only for providing food but for providing secondary raw materials. We are also using some of them even to produce bio-energy resources such as bio-ethanol, bio-diesel and more. For us, the important thing is to scale up what we are doing so far; they are various initiatives. In fact, most of the actions that Nigeria will be putting in its five years circle of National Climate Change Action Plan are going to focus on three major areas - the first one is going to be on the energy transition, i.e decarbonising the energy system as a whole; the second one is going to be focused squarely on land based emissions reduction processes. Where do we have these land-based (emissions)? It is in the agriculture, forestry and other land use sectors. The agricultural sector is going to serve as the substrate for the number of innovative approaches including climate smart agriculture and then providing opportunities for large scale expansion of Agricultural Estates using the best technologies and opportunities for effective resource utilisation including water, land and also integrating issues of a circular economy.
PT: We have conducted some surveys/researches across Nigeria, and we observed that there tends to be a significant knowledge gap about climate change, especially in the hinterlands. Is NCCC looking towards scaling up climate change education in the country?
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Dahiru: I want to differ in terms of your research. Yes, you did your research and probably used an "existential methodologist". Ask the average man in the village, the average farmer in the village, he would say in the past, if he is from the southern part of Nigeria, the rainfall season was characterised by two peaks and break in August. The break in August was to allow farmers who were willing to do double cropping in a year to plant maize twice in a year, to clear, harvest and prepare for the next one. They usually knew that whenever August set in, there would be an August break. Today, most farmers tell you that there is no August break, they don't even know when it happens. In terms of rainfall patterns, even in the North, where you know the highest rainfall comes in August, now we receive the highest rainfall either in June or in July which makes planning for planting difficult. These are the specific signs of climate change. All that we need to do in terms of that education is to connect and make people understand the connection between these adverse environmental and weather effects affecting their everyday life with climate change. What is happening, for us in the council, is modifying our messaging as the main focus of our stakeholder engagement, awareness creation and our engagement. It forms a big board. One of the six departments in the National Council of Climate Change is the Department of Innovation, Awareness, Research and Outreach.
PT: What's your take home from here back to Nigeria?
Dahiru: Leaders of the countries have made their statements, some have identified their priorities, Nigeria has also mentioned its priorities and it is determined to pursue the implementation of its NDCs; and that NDC is a half life for Nigeria's net zero target of 2060, because the NDC is meant to end by 2030, which is just less than seven years from now. So those priorities in our respective NDCs, we have finalised their allignment with our net zero targets with their Energy transition plan. The funding that we require is to be able to finance this. Now, the strategy is actually to develop a roadmap that will attract the necessary funding, both from outside the country which represents our conditional 47 per cent reduction by 2030 and then the things that we are doing within the country by looking inwards at what partnership organisations such as NSIA, Infracorp, the Ministry of Environment, in terms of the green bonds and a host of others, are doing to get sufficient in-country financing. That will not mean we will wait all through, going out cap in hand looking for support, but to be able to do our part with respect to that unconditional part of 20 per cent by 2030 is our priority, and that's what we intend to do.
