With an enviable massive population that guarantees potential market for new products and ideas, a society bustling with a vast amount of youthful demography, a world leader in oil/ gas production and an embarrassing digital connectivity network, Nigeria once again remains in the optics of investors as regards the economy of the future; The Carbon Eco era.
In a recent interview program, Renewed Hope Agenda:The Way Forward on Radio, captured by our correspondent Tekena Amakiri, a climate change expert Atai Albert Akpan, spoke on the subject of Climate Change, the UN SDG goals and how Nigeria can take advantage of the numerous opportunities it offers.
Q… What is Climate change all about ? And with United States of America’s withdrawal from the Paris agreement, does this move bode well for Nigeria or is it a negative?
Akpan… Climate change is the biggest subject matter currently, on the tables of many businesses globally, as the world tried to achieve the ambition of net zero by 2050. The knowledge of climate change touches on everything the world has passed through. It is basically all about mitigating the contamination of the atmosphere by reducing green house gasses. We should at this point note that the green house gasses is the basis of heating up the planet which results in a whole lot of problems, degradation of the environment, over heated landscapes and all that. So climate change is a method that is put in place to aid countries mitigate and reduce their dependence on burnt fuel. The whole concept of climate change is to help countries transform from high fossil fuel dependency to low carbon fuels, cleaner fuels and leveraging on the framework of advocacy, mitigation and
adaptation. Many who do support the implementation of climate change may not know everything about climate change because we don’t have the deep knowledge about the subject matter and how to go about it. Nigeria can live from the fact that we are in an era of climate change. We call it the Carbon Eco era. We are in a different era of the global economy. We have different economies. For now it is all about the Carbon Eco era. It is the most important subject matter today worth about 26 trillion dollars of economic potential.
Q…26 trillion dollars economy? How can Nigeria become part of this?
Akpan… Ironically, Nigeria is already doing a lot. Like the whole story of deploying solar panels, trying to do green fuel, the Nigerian gas flaring project and moving towards gas as a transitional fuel. What does it mean? Nigeria has to develop all the industries associated with gas flaring, which means you have to look at developing Methanol. You have to look at LNG, CNG and many other potentials associated with gas energy. That is already within the grid of the current government. Nigeria is one of the large oil/gas energy producers. Our move towards the use of solar panels is considered an adaptation of creating new energy sources and not depending on fossil fuel. The first part of it is what we call advocacy. It is basically to educate Nigerians on sustainable energy. The good thing here is that the whole world needs a new
sustainable workforce. Nigeria stands at the threshold of this transformation era. If we can work on our education curriculum to drive this advocacy, it will impact positively on our over 60% youthful population. It is an opportunity like no other. Such opportunities come once in every 50 years and with Nigeria having all the indices, all the prerequisites, we can lead the world in this aspect.
Q… President Bola Tinubu has set up the National Agency for the Great Green Wall and has also released a hundred billion Naira for the instalment of solar panels in all Federal government owned establishments. All these seem to show that he has a know how. How can the average Nigerian key in as a major player in this climate change initiative?
Akpan…There are three frameworks initially designed for the implementation of climate change; one is advocacy. Under this particular framework, millions and millions of Nigerians from the local government level could join in highlighting the benefits of climate change…..
Q…Who gets to fund these campaigns at that level?
Akpan… Government is expected to fund them. Oil producing countries are expected to produce more oil, more gas responsibly, while capturing these gases and putting them in the air to contaminate the climate even more, should be able to fund it. There are also global funding sources, the Green Climate Initiative Funds, ESG Funds and so on. There are 1 trillion investment climate change situations. So Nigeria need to learn and understand how green programs, projects, products and services qualify for such sustainability funding. That is not what we are not doing. To mention Nigeria investing one hundred billion….
Q… You said that is what we are not doing. Now tell us how we can do it.
Akpan… First of all, goal number 17 under UNSDG, is the most important goal. It is even more important than climate change because that is the goal that would help countries collaborate. It is called global partnership. Goal number 17 was strongly brought in to be able to help countries that do not have the knowledge, technology, deep thoughts and the idea of connectivity of different goals, to collaborate with international partners so they can help train and develop the technologies that will help countries with these difficulties, to be able to now integrate and interconnect all other goals, which climate change is number 13. Unfortunately Nigeria is a shallow society that does not appreciate the diaspora community. If a white guy walks into that place, they give him open ears but if a black man put it as I am doing it now, automatically they don’t give value to what you bring to the table. Instead they look down on your personality and the color of your skin. At some point Nigeria must first identify strategic partners with deep intellectual properties.
Q… When you say Nigeria must identify strategic partners.What does that mean? Which persons or agencies are responsible for this?
Akpan… You mentioned the Great Green Wall as an agency. You mentioned the Nigeria Council for Climate Change and Practice. these have the mandate alongside the Nigerian National Assembly. These people must always have professional, knowledgeable collaboration and partnerships behind them. They make and implement laws, but what plans do these laws hope to achieve? Climate issue is an existential one.The final draft that came out from that conference, mandated cities, states, private sector and the academia, to get into advocacy and implementation of climate change actions. They realized, any country acting alone, cannot be able to impact enough having done this for the past decade. The world is struggling with over 1. something Celsius climate temperature.The world is struggling with high carbon deposited into the air, so everybody now, from the least strategic player to the mandated agencies, the legislators….. you cannot say the Nigerian companies that employ more than 50 persons should have her sustainability plan. Where can they even get the template from? I will take the oil industry into consideration. The oil industries contribute over 35% of climate contamination because of their operations. 75% of the planet contamination is caused by the use of oil and gas products. Then you now have the scenario, where oil industries are mandated to create a sustainability department, well-streamed to one of their own. They will also nominate them to lead the sustainability implementation. That is a step in the wrong direction. Based on my experience and interactions with lots of people within that sector, I can tell you, a man whose core mindset is drill oil cannot lead sustainability implementation effectively. There are many sets of oil production. That is why in Nigeria you hear many people say climate change mitigation is all about oil and gas production. It is a total lie. They are misinforming the people. Which is why naturally, people have a wrong attitude towards adopting the whole process because climate change situation is the biggest investment opportunity for every sector; banking and manufacturing all have something to do. Transportation to education. Climate change touches on all the sectors. Don’t forget I said climate change is an economy. The Nigerian economy has what they call MDAs and the private sector. Climate change has every element of an economy, which means it touches on transportation, education, and manufacturing. Nigeria struggles today because of lack of knowledge. So the right partnership is the key to supporting any country. It is not a Nigerian problem alone ironically. It is actually a global problem. Every guy that comes into Nigeria with a briefcase is coming for a little peace of area that they have developed solution to sell. But they are not coming there to say this is an integrated plan. So Nigeria needs an integrated plan first of all so that every sector will know what role it plays, their possibilities and what benefits can come out of it. Nigeria is at that threshold, to take over the whole initiative of climate change implementation with the right partnership. Every other goal cannot do much without strategic partnerships. Innovation, poverty eradication, creating jobs, saving the planet, sustainable communities, goal number 11, goal number 13, climate change, goal number 15, Life on sea and Land. The government has created strategic agencies, like the Blue economy. I don’t know who told the President that the blue economy itself is a major economy of over 24 trillion dollars. that could help Nigeria….
Q…. But the Blue economy is not active and alive to its responsibilities? we hardly hear what they do….
Akpan… You cannot give what you don’t have. What is the criteria for selecting leadership in Nigeria? The king does not have to be the smartest person. He just has to be humble….
Q…And set up a quality team?
Akpan… But you cannot set up anything without knowing people. The world is now interactive. You must first of all have strategic partners, who will come and train the leaders. Nigerians need to learn from the top The leadership first should be trained to identify the potentials of where their mandate revolves around. I saw a post that Nigeria has allotted 500 million dollars for solar panel deployment. In defense of this budget, The first question any sitting should ask them should be, one. With $500 million how much greenhouse gas reduction are we going to see? Two. How much carbon footprint is being reduced by this investment? Three. How much carbon credit is going to come out of the 500 million? Four. How much investment can this initial deployment attract from ESG funding, CIF funding and other specific funding that border on adaptation? This is part of the climate change implementation. These questions cannot be asked by people, whether in the legislator or Committee sittings because they don’t know or understand how this investment could attract 500million dollars or more. Going to conferences, both locally or internationally, does not empower you with knowledge to lead from the front….
Q… The Green Peace international and Green Peace Africa are conferences coming up soon and both have to do with climate changes in Nigeria. You just said they don’t add up. Don’t you think, when you have more of these conferences and summits, they help create enlightenment for people to know what it is all about?
Akpan… The people that need to understand those involvements are the masses of Nigeria. Today, most universities in America are offering climate change as a prerequisite in their entry level. Just like english and mathematics, most ivy Leagues and important colleges are offering climate change as courses. But Nigeria is sitting back at this point. Why are they doing this? It is because the future between now and 2050 is going to be a discussion about climate change and sustainability among nations. So they are already creating the workforce of the future, which started 10 years ago. Why I said conferences are not the issue is that, people attend conferences for the purpose beneficial to them personally.The United Nations have already laid down the framework for advocacy. under advocacy, food, fashion, religion all these are ways you can drive advocacy to the root of our population. So selecting a few people, government officials… Some of them don’t even attend these conferences. At the end, they come back with nothing but a white paper that was presented. It is purely a talk shop and Nigerians are very good at talk shops. That is where we are. We have to drive a mass advocacy implementation program. The framework has been drawn up already. It is just for Nigeria to pick it up and run.
Q… How can Nigeria’s Renewed Hope Agenda effectively address climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies?
Akpan… They must first of all identify the ingredients of mitigation. Like I mentioned earlier, the three frameworks are advocacy,mitigation and adaptation. I have already spoken a lot about advocacy. Mitigation is the conscious call to the oil/gas industries. The oil industries are responsible for driving mitigation because this framework is all about producing low carbon fuel. What are low carbon fuels? LNG, CNG, Hydrogen, Methanol, Gas to Liquid Solutions. These are low carbon fuels that deliver lower greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. It is a call to the oil and gas industries. If you see the divestments of fuel Shell, Total, Mobile from Nigeria are into now, investing big on these new low carbon fuels. They know the future is….
Q…. Are they investing it in Nigeria?
Akpan… They are not doing it in Nigeria. We have NNPC, which is a limited liability company. we have the PIA. The latter itself is very futuristic.The PIA will help implement climate change seriously and drive other sectors of our economy….
Q… Now who is responsible for these implementations?
Akpan…The Nigerian upstream, midstream and downstream petroleum. They are responsible to come up with the plan that the oil and gas industries will use, to drive mitigation, which is creating all these different low carbon fuels. Now you need the technology to run what we call a digital train. This means they will now have to interconnect all these modular solutions. You cannot go in with seven billion investments anymore in this era. All flaring activities are located in very remote areas. So you have to go modular. With modular refineries to process these new fuels, it gives you carbon credit.The world is moving towards Methanol. The world is moving towards LNG. So it is the responsibility of the oil and gas sector to drive mitigation creating alternative fuels and that is for sure. Nigeria can lead and dominate because we have such an embarrassing amount of these products. It is just to have a plan. To be able to say, okay Shell or Mobile, this is what we want you to do with the flared gas. As you produce crude oil, associated gas comes out. These associated gas must be captured and converted to more useful low carbon fuels that create carbon credits and reduce carbon footprints. Now, this year, November 30th, there is a conference taking place in Brazil. Every country must come with what we call Voluntary National Determined Contribution towards the reduction of greenhouse gas. What is it about? This is all about your plans, what are your measures in place, how much carbon footprint is this going to reduce, how much carbon credit is this going to generate for your country because you are investing in all these new products and projects. So that brings a lot of frontiers. If you don’t do that, the world will do what they call Involuntary Entry. Those are the marks your country need to be able to meet up or you will not be given the proper grading for international funding. Nigeria is the least in having lower funding because they have not been able to develop clear sustainable projects. So that goes back to having the right knowledge, the right partnership to help you there.
Q… What role can renewable energy play in Nigeria climate change revolution under the Renewed Hope Agenda?
Akpan… We have a consortium of different knowledge systems, different technical capabilities, different core players in local burnt fuels. That is LNG, CNG, Hydrogen, Methanol, Gas to Liquid. We have assembled a team that has developed an integrated implementation plan. We have done several presentations to various entities in Nigeria already. But my brother, the limitation is having people who are not willing to learn, who are not ready to give you the benefit or credit you deserve for those coming to support them. The entire black world has identified Nigeria as a giant of the decarbonized era.They have come together to develop an integrated plan, knowledge capabilities not just on renewable energy but on media rebranding, monetization and digital training, carbon credit exchange. An all in one plan. We have done various presentations but they refuse to see the value. So the only person that can help is Chief Executive Officer of the country.The climate change action is now not tomorrow. You cannot prepare for the future in the future. That is the only man who can say, let us see this plan, let us evaluate this plan. Nigeria don’t have the background to develop that plan and there is no body in the whole world that has that integrated plan apart from what I am talking about. Nigeria can now become the country that created the global model that every country that wants to play in the energy sector within the climate change economy can come and learn what it is all about…
Q… So with your plan Nigeria has the potential of becoming a leading expert in the implementation of climate change actions?
Akpan… Yes. Let me tell you. Nigeria has an unfair advantage. One, we have a massive population, so you can create enough products. We have ECOWAS and other regional blocs right here.That is our first market to supply power. They don’t have it. We have an embarrassing digital system called connectivity. We have the largest creative economy of which Afro beats, Nollywood, artisans and all. We have an embarrassing number of graduating students every year, a million or two, through the NYSC program. These are the key indices. No other country in the world has them. We are one of the largest oil and gas producers in the world. We are champions of methanol harvesting. Luckily the President signed off to be one of the core champions of Methanol production. The other leading country in the Methanol race was the United States and they willingly fell out of the game. So Nigeria has an unfair advantage, but we have the annoying mistake of delegating people without the indepth knowledge of the connectivities as regards climate change, delegating people with core mentality that has to do with oil production, delegating people that are unwilling to learn. These are our major problems. So we cannot change it if we don’t address these issues from the root of it. Two, on how renewable energy could help climate change is under framework number three; adaptation.. It is all about creating non fossil energy. That is the only way Nigeria can push through to energy security. Nigeria cannot ignore this framework. So for now, you are deploying a massive amount of solar panels, which are barely a pinch, less than 2% so far required for Nigeria. Energy security is tied to renewable energy. What is renewable energy? Hydrogen, Solar, Hybrid Solutions, Long Judicious Energy Storage. All these solutions are there, so it is not like you have to develop them yourself. You can tap into it. For example, start training your workforce to develop this locally Nigeria could become a product provider and quit the whole mentality of running everywhere to buy because we just want to flip it up quick, come home and to buy the next big machine and roll the strings. This is an opportunity for massive investment across the various sectors of our economy. We are crying about a GDP of 300 billion. There is nothing you can do about it because you’re not producing. You have a monthly economy and all other sectors of the economy depend strongly on your energy sector and you have over 80% of Nigerians in darkness. You cannot do it. There is no miracle
Q… So how can we do it
Akpan… You have already made the error by deploying indiscriminate mini grids. Deploy in Aso Rock, deploy in Federal Secretariat, deploy in universities. You must bring all these many grids into one connectivity. How do you know when the solar panels need to be replaced? how do you know how much megawatts these mini grids are generating? You must interconnect them. That is what they call digital training. You don’t have the capabilities of getting global partners to help you deploy these solutions, so you are starting already on the wrong footing.