By Adewale Sanyaolu
President Muhammed Buhari, has tasked global leaders and Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) on the need to make funding and technology available in order to achieve energy transition success.
Buhari stated this in his address at the General Debate of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) 77 holding in New York, United States of America.
As a first step, he said every stakeholder must all commit to releasing the financing and the technology to create a stable and affordable framework for energy transition.
He added that Development Financial Institutions must prioritise de-risking energy projects to improve access of renewable projects to credit facilities, adding that there should be no countries “left behind” in this equation.
The President explained that at the Cop 26 in Glasgow last year, he did say that Nigeria was not asking for permission to make the same mistakes that others have made in creating the climate emergency.
Fortunately, he said Nigeria now knows what it can do to mitigate the effects of the climate crisis and the related energy challenge.
He maintained that rocketing energy costs worldwide are, in part, the product of conflict and supply disruptions to Europe and the Americas.
‘’Yet, we are all paying the price. It is, therefore, our expectation that this UNGA 77 and the upcoming COP 27 will help galvanise the political will required to drive action towards the fulfillment of the various existing climate change initiatives”.
Buhari said Nigeria’s plan towards rapid transition to renewable energy will result in significant job creation with up to 340,000 jobs created by 2030 and up to 840,000 jobs created by 2060 driven mainly by power, cooking and transport sectors.
The President stressed that his regime had, in August 2022, launched a home-grown, data-backed, multi-pronged energy transition plan, which is the country’s framework in achieving net-zero emissions by 2060.
Highlighting some of the details in the plan, the President said that through the use of emerging technologies and alternative fuels such as hydrogen, bio-energy and waste-to-energy, a pathway would be created for accelerated decarburization of energy systems and harnessing of new and diverse technologies towards low carbon development while aligning to our broader developmental aspirations in a fair and just manner.
He said, “The plan also sets out a timeline and framework for the attainment of emissions reduction across five key sectors: power, cooking, oil and gas, transport and industry…gas will play a critical role as a transition fuel in Nigeria’s net-zero pathway, particularly in the power and cooking sectors.
“The clean energy goals of the plan include modernizing the power sector with large-scale integration of renewable energy, enhancing energy efficiency and conservation; and is expected to generate 250 gigawatts of installed energy capacity with over 90 per cent made up of renewables.”
Expressing his confidence that the plan would put the nation on the path of prosperity, Buhari said that a careful implementation would create significant investment opportunities as it will engender the establishment and expansion of industries related to solar energy, hydrogen and electric vehicles.