Nairametrics
Nigeria’s Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, said Africa receives $29.5 billion in climate finance annually as opposed to the $277 billion it needs for climate financing.
He stated this 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) on Wednesday, November 9, 2022.
TRANSFORMA is a 4D initiative to fast-track the Digital Green Industrial Corridor among the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) member states.
The backstory: During the 41st Ordinary Session of the Executive Council in July 2022, the African Union adopted a common position, which stipulates that Africa will continue to deploy all forms of its abundant energy resources, including renewable and non-renewable energy, to address its energy demands.
According to the African Union, natural gas, green and low-carbon hydrogen, and nuclear energy will play a crucial role in expanding modern energy access in the short to medium term, while enhancing the uptake of renewables in the long term.
A pan-African platform: While giving his speech at the TRANSFORMA unveiling, Osinbajo noted that innovations like the 4D Digital Green Corridor and TRANSFORMA create ready platforms for pan-African collaboration, which is 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% and 159% 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.”
A just energy transition: Data from the 2022 African Economic Outlook released by the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group states that about 140 million more people were without access to electricity in 2019 than in 1990…
