For a nation too long distracted by crude oil earnings, $1 billion earning possibilities exist for nationals, subnationals and organisations interested in exploring revenue opportunities in carbon finance, experts familiar with the green energy initiative have disclosed.
According to Nigeria Country Representative of World Council for Renewable Energy (WCRE), Stanley Igwebuike, the mean size of low-carbon investments required in energy and transportation between 2018 and 2035 to provide needed ‘2°C world’ is about $6.78 trillion a year, i.e. about 5.7 per cent of projected global GDP.
Speaking during a recent webinar organised by IGR Initiative, the carbon finance expert said that nationals and subnationals could generate up to $50 million per month depending on the number of projects and the depth of the decarbonization projects they are able to achieve through green house friendly projects.
He explained that carbon finance was part of the financing of the incremental cost of dealing with climate change with the objective to decarbonise the environment. “In other words, in carbon finance, you can make money by lowering your emissions.
If you don’t emit carbon, you can quantify the carbon you don’t emit, and trade it for money to international buyers. “Decarbonisation means that we are going to develop renewable energy projects.
And there are what we call sub-nationally appropriate mitigation and adaptation project action that a state needs to take, and this has to be – come part of policy alignment with international framework and legislation supporting all this,” said Igwebuike who operates Abuja-based renewable energy consultancy firm, Schrodinger Greentech.
“The amount of revenue to be made from it is unlimited; it all depends on the depth of the decarbonisation,” he added. Also speaking in a separate forum, another carbon finance expert, Capt. Warredi Enisuoh, said Nigeria could earn over N320 million yearly from carbon credit.
Speaking as guest lecturer at the 4th annual symposium of the African Marine Environment Sustainability Initiative on in Lagos, the Executive Director, Operations, Tantita Security, explained that the adoption of carbon credit schemes could see coastal communities earn over N320m yearly. In his presentation, titled:
“Achieving blue growth in a changing climate – Integrating the coastal communities”, Enisuoh disclosed that Tantita Security realised the importance of carbon credits in a bid to provide solutions to the gross pollution in the Niger-Delta region.
According to him, one mature tree can absorb 80kg of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in a year, stressing that several developed countries had adopted the carbon credit initiative to preserve their environment. “If we allocate 50,000 trees per coastal community.
One carbon credit equals one tonne of carbon dioxide valued at $50. CO2 absorption per year equals 80kg times 50,000 trees, amounting to four million kg,” he explained.
According to Warredi, despite the recent signing of the Climate Change Act by Nigeria, the Federal Government is still investing in the acquisition of diesel-powered trains. New Telegraph findings reveal that carbon finance is part of the financing of the incremental cost of dealing with climate change with the objective to decarbonise the environment.
As the world is immersed in transition away from fossil fuel with its hazardous Greenhouse Gases (GHG) emissions to renewable green energy devoid of carbon emissions or at least, with very low carbon emissions intended to provide a ‘2°C world’, nations are encouraged to actively get involved in global green house friendly projects.
To this end, the United Nations Organisation, World Bank, and other global organisations are encouraging clean development mechanism projects, particularly the renewable energy projects, which developed countries of Europe and America, even Asia have long embraced in line with the Kyoto Protocol as modified by the Doha Amendment and later Paris Agreement.
To encourage this quantum of investments, experts say that funding incentive of over $1 bil – lion per annum has been provided by global bodies, from which countries can draw from based on their cumulative carbon credits.
According to the experts, this initiative was provided for in the Kyoto Protocol, and was subsequently modified with Doha Amendment and later the Paris Agreement.
The Kyoto Protocol operationalizes the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change by committing industrialized countries and economies in transition to limit and reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions in accordance with agreed individual targets.