Climate Change: FG threatens to sanction erring carbon traders

Okechukwu Nnodim

The Federal Government, on Wednesday, warned carbon emission reduction traders, who were trading without recourse to designated authority to desist from such activity.

Carbon trade is the buying and selling of credits that permit a company or other entity to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases.

The carbon credits and the carbon trade are authorised by governments with the goal of gradually reducing overall carbon emissions and mitigating their contribution to climate change.

The Federal Government’s warning came in Abuja at the validation workshop for the assessment of carbon pricing initiative in Nigeria, as it explained that the country had released an initial regulatory guidance which emphasised the need for a carbon trading scheme.

Speaking at the workshop, the Director-General, National Council on Climate Change – a Federal Government agency, Salisu Dahiru, said the regulatory guidance would be tailored towards the government’s priority and would align with Nigeria’s Nationally Determined Contributions on carbon emission, hence should not be altered.

He said, “The situation whereby carbon trading schemes that are all over the place are being done without recourse to the designated national authority for United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Nigeria, has to stop.

“We will ensure that every opportunity for harvesting emission reduction certificate from ongoing activities in Nigeria are linked to our NDCs, because that is what the Paris Agreement said and that is what we intend to follow.

“We want to take full advantage of those opportunities so that we can make the necessary investment and also drive the development along our priority targets, as contained in the NDCs and our net zero target.”

He stated that as far as Nigeria was concerned, carbon trading scheme was an aspect of its national policy and national priority to put in place all the measures that could address the country’s mitigation and adaptation challenges.

“We are very familiar with the flooding that happened last year, and this year, we are seeing the signs of flooding.

“This time round, not only in the riverine areas, but as close to us as Lugbe here in Abuja, which tends to highlight that nobody can escape the impact of climate change,” he stated.

Dahiru called for concerted and collective efforts to ensure that Nigeria was fully positioned to take advantage of the opportunities in climate change mitigation and adaptation.

“This is not only for the government to invest in, but for the private sector to see the potentials in what is always at the forefront and also to make profit from carbon trading as the opportunity emerges,” he stated.

The Lead Coordinator, African Group of Negotiators on Carbon Markets, Hadjie Diagne, said policies and instruments should be put in place by the government to encourage carbon pricing

Diagne said developed countries had proven that carbon pricing was one of the most effective economic instruments for reducing carbon emissions.

He added that carbon pricing contributed to supporting adaptation measures as well as poverty eradication through revenue generation.

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