By YUSUF YUNUS

Mr Gabriel Aduda, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, has expressed concern over the failure of global leaders to invest approximately 10 billion dollars in Nigeria’s net-zero and energy transition plans by 2060.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Aduda said this during a Ministerial Roundtable at the ongoing World Petroleum Congress (WPC) on Wednesday in Calgary, Canada, with the topic ‘What Does The Energy Transition Mean for Your Country?’

Aduda said various global leaders at the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland in 2021, made various commitments, which stood at 10 billion dollars.

According to him, this is to aid Nigeria’s agenda on commitments to attain net-zero by 2060 but with conditions.

“The truth of the matter is that promises were made as to how the initial injection of 10 billion dollars was going to be done. But, l seat here to tell you that not a cent has been moved,” he said.

He explained that part of the conditions was that transition to renewable does not come cheap.

Aduda said, “One of the things that Nigeria is not shy to say is that ‘we do not have the finances to get it done’.”

He maintained that if Nigeria was going to achieve net zero by 2060, it meant that there would be significant financial injection into the system from the country.

He noted that there would also be support across the world, especially those that were responsible for heavy emissions.

“Now these issues were agreed to and promises were made at COP26, but how much of these promises have been fulfilled?

“The truth is that Africa still sees huge financial exclusion when it comes to the issue of climate change and we have always said it and the numbers are clear.

“In 2021, 2022, 600 billion dollars of green burns were generated but less than 0.26 per cent came to Africa.

“When we made this commitment at COP26, His Excellency, the then president, said we would need at the very beginning about 10 billion dollars with a target of 410 billion dollars till 2060,” he said.

According to him, a larger chunk of these funds will be used for funding of infrastructure, especially gas infrastructure across Nigeria.

The permanent secretary said that Africa remains the most compliant continent when it comes to renewable.

According to him, this is because Africa has been able to prove that no other continent has been close to where it on renewables.

He maintained that out of the 54 countries in Africa, close to 30 use one form of renewable energy or the other.

He said, for instance, Kenya has 70 per cent of renewables and quite a number of other countries could also boast at least 40 per cent.

“But, what we have been able to put together across all the continent. No other continent is as compliant as African is, yet, Africa is the least emitter of this hydrocarbons or contributor to this climate issues that we are dealing with.

“More importantly, what does energy transition mean to us as a country? A lot. We totally understand that we are a very rich country in natural resources and our very strength is in gas, which in Nigeria is even much more than crude deposit.

“The proven quantum of gas that we have is about 260TCF with the potential for more. Now we have identified gas in Nigeria as our transition fuel.

“We have tried to rally round in all our policies, everything we need to see that would work within a framework, that allows us to push domestic injection of gas across Nigeria and of course across Africa.

“Because we have always exported gas, NLNG, name it, and we are still working that we reach out with our deposit to other Africa countries and even beyond,” Aduda added. (NAN)

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