Nigeria Links Gas Flareout To Carbon Trade
No commentsContrary to expectations of a new and more binding commitment to end gas flaring, Nigeria has instead chosen an indirect but financially-rewarding path to tackle the problem.
The Foreign Affairs Minister, Ojo Madueke, said on 17 December in Copenhagen, Denmark, that the nation was financing its gas flareout drive through the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). He was speaking at the high-level session of the UN climate change conference.
A major feature of the Kyoto Protocol, the global treaty on tackling climate change, the CDM allows reductions in greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO2) which are achieved by projects in developing countries to be sold to developed countries to help them to meet their emission limits.
When the idea of including gas flaring in the CDM was mooted several years ago it was roundly criticised by experts, who claimed that flaring violates the rights of local people and is a criminal act that should not earn anyone a profit.
But Madueke said on 17 December that the government’s gas master plan, including an end to flaring, would be implemented together with the National Adaptation Strategy on climate change.
He said: “We have chosen the facilities of the market in dealing with the challenge of the climate crisis by putting a price on carbon arising from gas flaring. Such a market approach will shift the emphasis away from investment in high carbon content assets and activities in Nigeria to a green economy over time. Indeed, a bill for an Act of the National Assembly in 2010 to end gas flaring has had its third reading.”
Describing the CDM as “a beacon of hope as we make gas flaring history in Nigeria,” Madueke regretted that existing CDM projects in Africa were not up to five per cent of the worldwide total. He called for an expansion so that “we can leverage on them to achieve level status for gas flaring in Nigeria.”
Two out of Nigeria’s three CDM schemes involve the use of hitherto flared gas found during oil drilling. They are the Kwale Gas Project and the Pan Ocean Gas Utilisation Project, located in Kwale and Ovade-Ogharafe (both in Delta State) respectively.
The Pan Ocean scheme will cut emissions by an estimated two million tons of CO2 annually, and the credits will be sold to Nuon, a Dutch state utility. The carbon emission reductions that occur in Nigeria will help the Netherlands meet its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol.
The third CDM project is the Save80 fuel-efficient wood stove, which aims to reduce by 80 per cent the amount of wood needed for cooking, so slowing the rate of desertification.
In a related development the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, declared in Copenhagen that transparency was vital to any agreement that the US would accept at the summit.
“All countries need to reach for common ground,” she said, calling for decisive national action and an international accord, and stating that assistance would be made available for adaptation and tackling deforestation.
Clinton underscored the US’s emissions reductions pledge “in the range of 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020,” which would be succeeded by 30 per cent below 2005 by 2025; 42 per cent by 2030; and over 80 per cent by 2050.
She called for generous financial support to help mitigation efforts in developing countries: $10 billion by 2012, rising to $100 billion a year by 2020.
