From Uche Usim and Adewale Sanyaolu, Abuja
The Secretary General of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo, and the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mr Mele Kyari, on Tuesday declared that achieving net zero emissions by 2050, being advocated as part of the global energy transition agenda, remains totally unrealistic because developing countries like Nigeria would have to conquer poverty, poor energy and hunger before delving into the daunting task of achieving zero emission.
This is coming on the heels of encomiums heaped on President Muhammadu Buhari and the National Assembly (NASS) on the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB)
On the contrary, they said global crude oil demand would remain high, up to 100 million barrels per day, declaring that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to energy transition since different countries have different urgent priorities.
Barkindo and Kyari stated this in their remarks at the ongoing 20th edition of the Nigeria Oil and Gas Conference in Abuja. They said there is strategic plan to ditch fossil fuel for cleaner energy provided by gas, especially now that banks have become weary in lending to fossil fuel businesses.
According to Barkindo, three significant challenges namely: scale and timing, supply chains and the developing world currently stand in the way of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
“In terms of scale and timing, the 28-year period from now until 2050 is not adequate to achieve net-zero emissions, considering the scale of investments required, the availability of land, the required massive expansion of the electricity grid and a host of nearly 400 milestones that would need to be reached to achieve the net-zero goal. The last transition took nearly 200 years to cycle through, and now we want to achieve an even more ambitious transition in less than 30 years! This is simply not realistic.
“Additionally, a swift transition to clean energy sources would be highly reliant on the steady, robust supply of critical minerals such as copper, cobalt, lithium, nickel and aluminium, many of which are produced in a geographically centralized area. We must also consider that the amount of mineral material needed to produce energy is higher than with fossil fuels. For example, a typical electric car requires six times the mineral inputs than that required to power a conventional vehicle with fossil fuels.”