Chuks Oyema-Aziken
For Nigeria to maintain it’s leading position in the African continent, it has been urged to take relevant climate actions that will impact positively on the people.
United States special presidential envoy for climate, Senator John Kerry stated this at a media round table with select environment journalists in Abuja.
Kerry said Nigeria has a leading role to play in relation to other African nations.
“Nigeria is one of the important countries in terms of giving direction in leading with climate in Africa, Because Nigeria is a major producer of gas, how it approaches climate crisis will send the message to the rest of the continent and other people in the world.” he said.
The former US Secretary of State said he was visiting to guide the country as a major gas producer, with high population, to set the direction on how to deal with climate crisis.
He said “having the right mix of energy sources over the next few years is going to help us define how the crisis is going to be dealt with. So Nigeria can deploy more renewable energy sources. There is less than one percent solar, less than one percent wind, there’s almost no gas-thermal in Nigeria.”
“For the Climate Envoy, it required global concerted effort with a higher level of responsibilities to countries that produce more emissions such as the US to tackle the challenge.
“The United States, my country has to do more, that is why we have set a target of reducing our emissions by fifty to fifty-two percent by 2030 because that’s what the Paris and Glasgow agreements require.”
Earlier, Senator Kerry had visited the Minister of Environment, Barr. Abdullahi Mohammed and Wuse market.
In Wuse market, he commendable the private sector driven initiative to adopt solar energy, saying it will boost transition to cleaner sources.
