Energy Transition Plan: CSOs decry lack of host communities’ inclusion

Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) have decried the lack of inclusion of oil communities, women and youth groups in the energy transition plan.

The CSOs took this position at a “Training and Awareness Event on Just Energy Transition for Oil Communities, Women and Youth” organised by the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI) in partnership with BudgiT Foundation.

The event was held Thursday in Port Harcourt, Rivers State capital.

According to the organisers, it was aimed at promoting skill building and awareness on a just energy transition to inform host communities’ advocacy for inclusion in Nigeria’s energy transition plan.

They also claimed it was targeted at improving the understanding of oil communities, women and youth about just energy transition, and its implications on their livelihoods.

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Tengi George-Ikoli, Senior Officer, Nigeria Programme, NRGI, in her opening remarks, charged the host communities to use their existing framework and structures to make sure that their perspectives are heard and included in the different frameworks being designed at the federal and state levels to tackle climate change and energy transition.

She emphasised the need for Nigeria to have a fair, equitable and inclusive energy transition, even as she advocated a just energy transition that prioritises economic inequality, social exclusion, and environmental justice.

The strategy, she noted, will mitigate the impacts of the energy transition on the lives and livelihoods of oil communities, women and youth.

Ms George-Ikoli stressed the need for awareness and training to prepare marginalised groups to begin to engage in the energy transition process at the early stages of Nigeria’s Energy Transition Plan implementation.

She noted that Nigeria committed itself to achieve net zero by 2060 through the ambitious Energy Transition Plan (ETP), “but are we talking in the perspectives of communities, women and youths groups?”

“It’s our pathway now to see how we can figure out how this can be done and how we can lend our voices to improve the process,” she said.

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Adejoke Akinbode, Head of Natural Resource Governance and Sustainability at BudgiT, while speaking on the economic implications of the energy transition on the host communities, women and youth groups, emphasised the need for the government to explore a gender perspective for just energy transitions.

Ms Akinbode said despite being the “key stakeholders in energy efficiency and environmental sustainability initiatives, women and indigenous communities are often marginalised, and that there is no equal representation of women and other minority groups in decision-making processes”.

Ms Akinbode said the government should involve women and host communities in the ETP and encouraged communities to demand accountability from oil-producing firms for pollution and remediation commitments made as they exit the industry.

Also, in her presentation, Kehinde Aderogba, a Community Relations Officer at Spaces for Change, noted that “inclusion is the meaningful participation of extractive communities in the decision-making process and equitable distribution of benefits and opportunities that come from resources and revenue of extractive activities”.

Ms Aderogba said communities must devise means by bringing their perspectives and integrating their priorities into the energy transition plan.

However, she highlighted some key drivers of exclusion. According to her, there is a power imbalance between extractive communities and extractive companies, and most extractive companies do not respect and put the priorities of these communities in place, as shown by the way they by-pass the host communities to liaise with the federal authority to exploit their natural resources.

Another driver of exclusion, she said, is the limited participation of community members in resource governance. “The perspectives of communities, women and youth were not considered when the plan was developed, and this can be attributed to a trend of historical and systematic marginalisation of community members”..

Opportunities

The Executive Director of Extractive360, Juliet Ukanwosu, also a facilitator at the event, spoke on the environmental and social impacts of energy transition on oil communities, women and youth groups and highlighted the associated opportunities. She noted that the shift to renewable energy is not just about Nigeria but a global movement.

She said, “The world will move on whether or not we like it, and there will be no more market for our oil because world governments have committed to various dates to end fossil fuel use”.

Mrs Ukanwosu stressed that the social impact of the energy transition on oil-rich communities includes jobs and poverty alleviation, access to energy, improvements of human health, and women empowerment.

She added that the environmental impact of energy transition would limit climate change and global warming, improve air and water quality, reverse desertification, provide a new lease of life for near-extinct wildlife and improve farming activities.

About Energy Transition

Energy transition is shifting global energy from fossil fuels, otherwise known as dirty fuels, which emit carbon and are a major contributor to climate change, to cleaner energy sources (renewable energy) such as wind and solar, to reduce global carbon emission.

Nigeria has agreed that it will play its part by achieving net zero by 2060 and, therefore, came up with a plan called the Energy Transition Plan (ETP) that outlines how it will achieve it. The ETP developed a timeline and framework to attain carbon reduction across five sectors: transport, power, oil and gas, cooking and industry.

The key objectives of ETP are; lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty and driving economic growth, bringing modern energy sources to the full population, managing the expected long-term job loss in the oil sector due to the reduced global fossil-fuel demand, playing a leadership role for Africa by promoting, a fair, inclusive and equitable energy transition in Africa that will include gas as a transitionary fuel, and streamlining existing and new government related energy transition initiatives.