CLIMATECHANGENEWS

Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country and the continent’s biggest oil producer. Apart from crude oil reserves, Nigeria has the largest gas reserves in Africa and is among the world’s top 10 gas producers, with estimated reserves of 5.72 trillion cubic metres (tcm).

Since 2012, Nigeria has been among the top seven countries flaring gas. According to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Nigeria flared 35.4 tcm of natural gas between 2016 and 2020.

Nigeria to end gas flaring by 2030, under national climate plan

Flaring emits CO2, methane and volatile organic compounds. Methane, which is the primary constituent of fossil gas, contributes significantly to global warming. Although it only stays in the atmosphere for around nine years, methane has a warming impact 84 times that of CO2 over a 20-year period. Oil production was responsible for about 40% of global methane emissions in 2020, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Aside from the health and environmental costs, it wastes fuel that could generate revenue if captured and sold. Nigeria lost an estimated $762 million to gas flaring in 2018, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

And there is huge unmet demand for energy. According to the World Bank, 85 million Nigerians do not have access to grid electricity and the lack of reliable power results in economic losses equivalent to 2% of GDP annually.

The country is trying to crack down. Nigeria pledged to end gas flaring by 2030, under an updated climate change plan submitted to the UN last year, and has signed up to the Global Methane Pledge, vowing to cut emissions by 30% by 2030, alongside 110 other countries. The country also signed into law its Climate Change Act (CCA) in 2021.

Nigeria has committed to cut its emissions 50% by 2050 and achieving net zero emissions by 2060.

Gas flaring undermines Nigeria’s climate goals, Chukwumerije Okereke, a professor in environment and development at Reading University, told Climate Home News.

“Gas flaring is the largest single source of climate pollution in Nigeria contributing about 55 million tonnes of carbon equivalent per annum. It is important to arrest the climate pollution from gas flaring if Nigeria is really interested in tackling climate change,” he said.

Many experts and residents of the Niger Delta are sceptical about the government’s goal, in light of its record. Since the first legislation to regulate the oil industry, the Petroleum Act of 1969, was enacted, 10 deadlines to end gas flaring have been missed.

The country continues to invest in oil and gas exploration and is projected to remain one of Africa’s lead crude oil producers and top three gas producers for the next three years.

Previous attempts to tackle the problem have not succeeded primarily because “of the failure to align political and economic interests to action,” Okereke said. “Some of the major climate action that the government could take to address this problem invites them to go against certain powerful interests.”

Samson Benu, an official at the Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project (NEWMAP), said the country’s infrastructure deficit and lack of finance must be addressed before significant progress can be made. Previous attempts to provide these resources since 2016, through the government’s gas flare commercialisation programme, have been fraught by corruption and lack of requisite technology.

To discourage multinational corporations from flaring gas, the government introduced a penalty of $2 per thousand cubic feet of gas wasted. According to Nigeria’s National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), in 2021 the volume of flaring was equivalent to $521 million in fines, which were mostly unpaid.

Environmental activist Nnimmo Bassey told Climate Home News oil majors would prefer to pay the fine than invest in the needed infrastructure.

“The problem right now is that the Nigerian state is the majority shareholder in all the joint ventures and stopping gas flaring requires that majority shareholders provide the [necessary funds],” he said.

Bassey criticised some of the provisions in Nigeria’s Climate Change Act, including the requirement that all companies of 50 or more employees set annual emissions reduction targets. Bassey said companies will end up playing with figures and give fictional solutions due to poor oversight by regulatory agencies.

Tijah Bolton-Akpan, the executive director of the environmental justice organisation Policy Alert, called the law “a feel-good illusion”. He said the law does not align with the country’s overall development agenda, which is still very much reliant on crude oil.

“We have a contradiction. On the one hand, we have emissions reduction targets and on the other hand, an economy that isn’t in a hurry to diversify away from the fossil industry. There is an energy transition blind-spot,” Bolton-Akpan told Climate Home News.

He said that the Act does not include the goal of cleaning up communities affected by oil pollution.

“The least the government can do now is to put in place a framework to clean up their badly damaged environment and enable them to have their lives back,” he said.

Bolton-Akpan’s implementation fears also extend to data collection. Poor disclosure of the carbon intensity of reserves, production processes and outputs by international oil companies operating in Nigeria remains a challenge.

For fisher Etia, the government’s intents are lofty but they amount to nothing if time is not devoted to enforcement.

“Our lives are not a reflection of the amount of resources in our land because of gas flaring. The government should quit talking and get to work,” he told Climate Home News.

Oil companies operating in the Niger Delta and state government officials did not respond to Climate Home News’ requests for comment.