EXPLAINER: Nigeria’s newly enhanced $337 billion climate pledges, implementation headache

On 22 September, the Nigerian Government submitted its third Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC 3.0) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The enhanced pledge — estimated to require about $337 billion to implement — was unveiled less than two months before the COP30 Climate Conference scheduled for 10–21 November in Belém, Brazil.

While the submission reaffirms Nigeria’s commitment to global climate targets, concerns abound regarding the viability of translating the ambitions into desired outcomes, especially their prospects of delivering long-lasting succour to communities at the mercy of the climate crisis.

NDCs, country-level pledges under the Paris Agreement, outline strategies for paring down greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to climate change impacts.

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The overarching goal of the Paris Agreement is to keep global temperature rise significantly below 2°C above pre-industrial levels as efforts are advanced to limit its surge to 1.5°C.

Signatory countries have a duty to periodically review, update and submit their pledges every five years to reflect new data and emerging national trends.

In 2004, Nigeria ratified the Kyoto Protocol and, in 2017, the Paris Agreement, committing to play a part in the global effort to moderate temperatures and step up climate resilience without undermining food security.

From ‘business-as-usual’ to ‘economy-wide’ reduction

The NDCs submitted by Nigeria in 2015 and 2021 focused on emission control relative to a “business-as-usual” trajectory. The latest document is even more ambitious, having introduced a major strategic shift from relative reductions to economy-wide absolute emissions cuts.

In the 2021 submission (NDC 2.0), Nigeria vowed to cut emissions by 20 per cent unconditionally and 47 per cent conditionally by 2030, depending on international financial support. That plan covered four greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and hydrofluorocarbons — and incorporated the waste sector for the first time.

The label, “unconditional”, implies the country’s independent commitment to scale back emissions, using its own resources. Yet, with ample financial and technical backing from international partners, the target could climb to 47 per cent.

With NDC 3.0 now in place, President Bola Tinubu said Nigeria’s new framework “builds on the foundations of NDC 1.0 and 2.0” but introduces absolute emissions targets that are in line with the country’s net-zero-by-2060 goal.

“This approach better fits and aligns with the net-zero emissions target of the country as well as our methane reduction commitments made at COP26 in Glasgow,” the government stated.

It has been revealed that the review was informed by outcomes from the 2023 UNFCCC Global Stocktake, findings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report, and Nigeria’s national development priorities.

Nigeria’s new targets

According to the document, Nigeria has committed to lower emissions by 32.2 per cent by 2030, while targeting 100 per cent electricity access, 50 per cent renewable energy share in the power mix and 9 per cent annual growth in new electricity connections by that date.

The NDC 3.0 also highlights intermediate targets of absolute emissions reductions of 168.2 MtCO₂e by 2030 and 184.9 MtCO₂e by 2035 – both relative to 2018 levels – on the path to net-zero by 2060.

In simple terms, Nigeria plans to release 168.2 million tonnes less carbon by 2030 than it did in 2018, and by 2035, it hopes to cut that volume further to 184.9 million tonnes.

These objectives are part of a broader long-term plan to completely stop discharging more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than it can absorb — a goal known as “net-zero” — by the year 2060.

The 70-page document hints that Nigeria will maintain its 20 per cent unconditional commitment, while the remaining 80 per cent of reductions is dependent on international financial and technical support.

The document also includes new climate commitments such as decreasing deforestation by 60 per cent, reforesting 250,000 hectares and planting 25 million trees.

For the first time, health and climate education have been designated as priority sectors — a move to integrate environmental sustainability into public health and civic development.

Financing the ambition

To deliver on these commitments, the National Council on Climate Change (NCCC) said Nigeria will seek to mobilise $20–25 billion by 2030 through green bonds, blended finance, and public-private partnerships.

Of the total $337 billion required, Nigeria plans to raise $67 billion (20%) locally and seek $270 billion (80%) in concessional finance, grants, and technology support from international partners.

“Delivering on these commitments will require partnership, technology, and finance at scale. Ambition alone is not enough,” said Tenioye Majekodunmi, the director-general of the NCCC, on the sidelines of the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly last month.

“We call on the international community—governments, the private sector, and development partners—to stand with us and invest in this journey,” she said.

Vice President Kashim Shettima, who led Nigeria’s delegation to the UN General Assembly on behalf of Mr Tinubu, lauded the updated plan as a statement of ambition and accountability.

“Nigeria is firmly in control of its climate destiny,” he said. “We are prepared to lead the continent with development-friendly, economy-wide climate governance.”

Minister of Environment Balarabe Lawal described the milestone as “the culmination of over a decade of effort to mainstream climate change into national development planning.”

“With this framework, the ministry and the National Council on Climate Change will work with the private sector and global partners to turn this plan into visible action,” he said.

Concerns and realities

Barely two years into President Bola Tinubu’s first term, Nigeria is in the middle of a severe food crisis largely fuelled by the abolition of petrol subsidies, a much weaker naira from currency devaluations and insecurity in key food-producing states.

These policies have sharply driven up the costs of transportation and agricultural inputs. In like manner, devastating flash floods in key agrarian areas over the past three years have had dire implications for food availability and affordability.

Similarly, Nigeria faces a huge climate financing gap, a rising debt profile, and recurring governance challenges that could hinder implementation. A history of poor project accountability and mismanagement of climate funds is also stoking worries about institutional readiness.

“The target translates to roughly $6.7 billion per year, at a time when debt-service costs consume a large share of federal revenues and public borrowing space is tightening,” Razaq Fatai, head of research and advisory at agriculture-focused consultancy Vestance, told PREMIUM TIMES.

“While recent improvements in tax collection and subsidy reforms have created some fiscal headroom, they remain insufficient to fund large-scale climate investments from the budget alone,” he also noted.

He is suggesting that the government embrace a broad mix of financing options that will combine public revenues with private and institutional capital, sovereign and corporate green bonds, sub-national financing and carbon-market revenues to fund its capital-intensive climate goals.

Nigeria’s ability to raise $67 billion locally will depend less on the fiscal space alone and more on policy credibility, investment readiness, and the capacity to crowd in domestic private capital, Mr Fatai said.

While NDC 3.0 has set a new regional benchmark — Nigeria being the first in West Africa and fifth in Africa to present its third NDC — execution is the litmus test.

How well emission control mechanisms are deployed, monitored and regulated in the energy industry is critical to these ambitions, particularly to the drive to attain the net-zero target and transition to cleaner energy.

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Nigeria’s economy is heavily dependent on fossil fuels as the main income source for the government. Like his predecessors, President Tinubu has reiterated the need to diversify the country’s economy by reducing reliance on oil & gas and developing alternative sustainable renewable energy sources like solar power.

He is also backing increased oil and gas production for domestic consumption and export, though, amid pressures to boost foreign exchange earnings and shore up revenue.

The start of the 650,000 bpd-Dangote Petroleum Refinery at a time when countries around the world are battling pressures to shift away from fossil fuels is perceived as a game-changer for Nigeria’s long-standing fuel crisis.

While Nigeria’s Energy Transition Plan, launched in 2022, is aiming for near-universal electricity access by 2030, experts have warned that a continuous reliance on gas as a “transition fuel” risks locking in carbon-intensive infrastructure (stranded assets).

The country has the largest population of persons without electricity access globally—about 86.8 million lacking power in 2023, or over 40 per cent of its populace. According to the World Bank, that marked the third consecutive year Nigeria has had the highest electricity access deficit in the world.

The pace of population growth is arguably outpacing electrification efforts across the country, while chronic outages due to recurrent grid failures in recent years are forcing households and businesses to rely on petrol-powered generators. That recourse costs the economy roughly $22 billion annually in fuel expenses, about five per cent of the GDP.

As climate impacts intensify — from flooding and droughts to heatwaves and unpredictable rainfall — communities on the frontlines of the crisis will be watching to see whether these new pledges translate into real resilience and relief.

Experts have argued that to actually reduce emissions to a level that is consistent with the global target of 1.5ºC, countries must take the decarbonisation of their economies seriously.