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Nigeria’s Sovereign Wealth Fund has signed a joint venture agreement with an energy and commodities company to invest in carbon removal projects.
Nigeria’s Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) and Vitol are in the process of reaching a final investment decision on the first projects. An initial $50 million has been committed to the joint venture, called Carbon Vista.
Investments will focus on the infrastructure, agriculture and energy sectors.
Its first investment will be in a household energy efficiency programme focused on clean cooking and water filtration devices.
Carbon removal projects to include replacing of wood with clean cooking devices
“The project is looking to deploy up to 200,000 devices of each.
“Providing rural households with efficient household devices significantly reduces wood fuel consumption and related greenhouse gas emissions and household air pollution whilst also saving communities money and time,” said Vitol.
Around a billion people in sub-Saharan Africa rely on wood and charcoal for daily cooking and water purification, a major cause of the nearly four million hectares of annual deforestation, said NSIA.
Aminu Umar-Sadiq, NSIA managing director, and chief executive officer, said: “The realisation of Nigeria’s Energy Transition Plan requires a radical rethink of our energy consumption mix beginning from the micro-level.
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“Without incremental steps to address the fundamental issues, including water security and homestead energy access and consumption, achieving the ETP goals may remain unrealised and further exacerbate our climate risks.”
Michael Curran, Vitol’s head of environmental products, said the joint venture “should be a catalyst in the creation of the domestic emissions trading scheme…”
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At Tuesday’s signing at the State House Banquet Hall in Abuja, Nigeria’s Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, said Africa has the capacity of becoming the world’s first green civilisation.
“While we talk about climate justice and saying that the transition must be a fair one; and saying that we still need fossil fuel for several purposes, we must also agree that there is a new way by which Africa and indeed, Nigeria, can benefit immensely from what is coming to us.
“In other words, Africa can become the first truly green civilisation; the first civilisation on earth to use renewable fuels for the purposes of a transformative economic journey,” state media quoted Osinbajo as saying.
