Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said participating in the carbon market would not only offer Nigeria and Africa the opportunity for growth, industrialization and job creation for its teeming population, it would also provide the right incentives for clean energy and climate action.
According to him, the carbon market pipeline could create 30 million jobs in the next decade, with the potential to create more than 100 million jobs through climate aligned projects by 2050.
The vice president stated this yesterday in his keynote address at a high-level international meeting on Africa Carbon Market Initiative (ACMI) hosted by the Rockefeller Foundation in New York City, USA., where he stressed the importance of building the carbon markets architecture in Africa.
Speaking to an audience, which includes the US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry, who joined the meeting virtually, Vice President Osinbajo in a statement by his spokesman, Laolu Akande stated that “participating in the carbon market offers Africa the opportunity to pursue growth, industrialization, economic value creation, with the right incentives for clean energy and climate action.”
The meeting explored potential opportunities which carbon markets offer to generate resources for clean energy transitions while accelerating economic growth in Nigeria and other African countries.
It would be recalled that an International Steering Committee is driving the activation of African Carbon Markets in Africa, under the auspices of the African Carbon Market Initiative.
Members of the Committee include the Nigerian Vice President, former President of Colombia, Ivan Duque Marquez, officials of the United Nations, United States Agency for International Development, USAID; Gates Foundation among others.
Also, President Muhammadu Buhari had announced “Nigeria’s commitment to net-zero by 2060 on the basis of a detailed Energy Transition Plan (ETP),” in his COP26 statement, while at COP27, Nigeria’s Minister of Environment, Mohammed Hassan Abdullahi, delivered the President’s speech on the need for more funding for energy transitions and climate action, and why Nigeria is championing the development of the African carbon market initiative.”
Against the backdrop of global rapid expansion of the carbon markets, the Vice President noted that “Africa currently only has a small share of this carbon market, but the current market can be scaled in a massive way – to reach FDI of $120 billion to $200 billion dollars annually. For a continent that needs $240 billion dollars annually in mitigation investment alone, this carbon finance stream could be the difference between transitioning and not (transitioning).”
Emphasizing the market’s benefits for the African continent at the Rockefeller Foundation meeting, the VP said the “combination of capital flows, job creation, and avoidance of long-term climate destruction” are critical drivers of the interest of African leaders in supporting this effort.
“As all of us in this room understand well, the priorities of the African continent are not just to act decisively on the climate crisis, but to also create significant growth opportunities for our young and growing population.”
On the challenge of funding, Prof. Osinbajo noted that “the investment required to advance the energy transition in Africa is huge. World Bank estimates suggest that Africa needs $6.5 trillion US dollars between now and 2050 for mitigation action alone to keep temperatures below 2 degrees of warming.”
Lauding the positive Pan-African efforts at developing Carbon markets on the continent, the VP noted that the “rapid progress recorded in Africa benefitted from the support of a very engaged Steering Committee with President Duque, the UN, Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP), USAID, and a range of other public and private actors, which resulted in the successful launch in Sharm-el-Sheikh COP-27.
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