Osinbajo: Defunding Gas Projects Unhelpful to Developing Countries

Deji Elumoye in Abuja

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said the plan to defund gas projects in the run up to the global Net-Zero emissions target will be unhelpful to developing countries such as Nigeria.

Osinbajo stated this during his presentations at High-Level UN events on the Energy Transition plan in Africa with special focus on Nigeria ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) summit in London.

The Vice President’s first meeting was a closed-door session with COP26 President-Designate, Mr Alok Sharma, a cabinet rank British Minister and the Chair of the UK Government’s COP26 Energy Transition Council (ETC) at Whitehall.
The discussions with Sharma centered on issues regarding the 2050 global Net-Zero emissions target and the need for the international community to align on the key elements of a just and equitable transition for all.

At the meeting, Osinbajo warned that the moves to defund gas projects would not help the whole enterprise, which required gas, especially on putting it on the grid.
He opined that the ultimate goal of the global energy transition should be to achieve reliable net-zero-energy systems to power prosperous, inclusive economies.

His words: “Limiting the development of gas projects poses dire challenges for African nations, while making an insignificant dent in global emissions. Energy demand in Nigeria and across Africa is set to rise, as indeed it must, to deliver the industrialisation, jobs and economy-wide progress people deserve.”

He further said Nigeria had already made a commitment to have 30 percent of its electricity supply from renewables by 2030.
According to him, natural gas was being used for industry, fertiliser manufacturing, and cooking, which were more difficult to transition than power generation.

The Vice President stressed that Nigeria was committed to all of its national determined contributions under the Paris Agreement and had updated its commitments in our new Energy Transition Plan.

While disclosing that Nigeria was about the first African country that had developed an energy transition plan that sought to demonstrate its commitment to the global net -zero emissions, he added that in its commitment to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the Federal Government was making efforts to use large shares of clean energy sources.

The Vice President also had an interaction with the academic community at Imperial College followed by meetings of the Global Energy Alliance and presentations on Nigeria Energy Transition Plan and Nigeria’s Integrated Energy Plan.

Osinbajo said Africa as a continent was home to the world’s youngest fastest growing population.
“In order to create jobs and enable climate-smart industrialisation, the scale and quality of electricity services must increase significantly. This means building sustainability into our economic planning, and so our Economic Sustainability Plan, includes a plan to provide five million homes with cleaner energy through its decentralized solar power programme. This means an estimated 25 million Nigerians would have access to solar power.
The first phase of this plan is already underway, and we think that this sort of programme will very quickly ramp up our progress towards net-zero emissions,” he added