Dear Minister Balarabe Abbas Lawal, Honourable Minister of Environment, Nigeria,
My name is Juwonlo Michael. I am the Country’s Manager for Nigeria for Climate Scorecard, a non-profit organization that monitors the climate policies and programs of leading greenhouse gas emitting countries.
Based on a review of Nigeria’s policies, we believe that there is much that can be done to increase your country’s climate ambition, achieve the global goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030, and become carbon neutral by 2050. Therefore, we suggest that you adopt the following goals and announce these goals at COP28.
# 1 Nigeria Announces It Will Strengthen Its Paris Agreement Pledge: As of 2022, Nigeria has pledged to achieve a target reduction of 47% (gigatons) by 2030. We suggest that you announce a revision of this and related targets at COP 28. We suggest that you announce that by 2030, Nigeria will reduce its emissions by 50% and become carbon neutral by 2050, and provide details on how this goal will be achieved. This goal can be achieved by implementing policies and taking steps towards a sustainable transition across all sectors. These steps should be more realistic and take a top-down and bottom-up approach. Thus contributing to global efforts to mitigate climate change.
# 2 Nigeria Announces It Will End the Production of Fossil Fuels: As Africa’s biggest oil producer, with fossil fuels accounting for 60% of government revenue and 90% of foreign exchange earnings. I hereby suggest a plan for Nigeria to end its fossil fuel production to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2060. Also, restate its pledge to end gas burning as a by-product of oil production by 2030.
I hope you will incorporate these suggestions in your presentation at COP28, and I look forward to hearing back from you.
Sincerely,
Juwonlo Michael
Climate Scorecard —- Country Manager