Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, has said that Africa needs $277 billion for climate financing, but receives only $29.5 billion.
He added that the continent needed more climate financing.
He spoke during the unveiling of the 4D Digital Green Industrial Corridor and the launch of the African Union Transition Fuels Oversight and Regulatory Management Accelerator (TRANSFORMA).
TRANSFORMA is a 4D initiative to fast-track the Digital Green Industrial Corridor among the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) member states.
Osinbajo said innovations like the 4D Digital Green Corridor and TRANSFORMA created ready platforms for pan-African collaboration, which,he noted, was critical to finance and resource mobilization on the continent.
Osinbajo said: “TRANSFORMA is indeed a welcome development, and we recognize the value that the transcontinental policy and implementation vehicle offers in mobilizing larger investments, improving shared learning, and producing larger economies of scale for individual nations like Nigeria and also for the entire continent.
“Reports from the World Bank estimate that the AfCFTA could raise income on the continent by over $450 billion by 2035 and lift 50 million people out of extreme poverty. Importantly, the continent could see foreign direct investment increase by between 111 per cent and 159 per cent under the AfCFTA.
“Joint advocacy on principles for a just transition is getting stronger, our home-grown solutions must do the same. Our case as a continent, particularly with respect to the just ‘energy transition’ is cogent and irrefutable. We cannot accept a global energy transition that leaves millions of our people in the dark, exposed to harmful pollutants due to unclean cooking, or poor and unemployed because of limited industrial activity.”
The Vice President emphasied on the importance of natural gas development in Africa, adding that s that Africa deserves the policy flexibility and support to leverage natural gas for the speedy resolution of the continent’s energy needs.
Osinbajo said: “Natural gas has a key role to play in Africa as a transition fuel to facilitate the delivery of electricity access and clean cooking solutions, the scaleup and integration of renewable energy into the energy mix and the switch from dirtier fuels like diesel and petrol.
“It has been estimated that economic activities stimulated by the domestic utilisation of Nigeria’s recoverable gas reserves could support 6.5 million full-time equivalent jobs and produce $18.3 billion in gross value addition annually, with over $5 billion of this amount directly from capturing the economic value of natural gas liquids (NGLs).”
