Green economy

If taken as a country on its own, Lagos would be amongst the largest economies in Africa. It has been able to diversify its economy and to considerably reduce its dependence on oil allocations. But its potentials are still huge if it invested in skilled labour force, reduced its bureaucratic hurdles and adopted an inclusive development approach.

Nigeria‘s population of about 170 million people share 4,000 Megawatt of electricity between them. That amounts to about 3 light bulbs per person. However, Nigeria sees itself as a future world economic power. So how is Nigeria going to power its envisaged economic growth? What is Nigeria’s energy future? This article is based on a lecture held at the Lagos Business School by Hans Verolme, international expert specialising on green development solutions, climate and energy.

All technologies have their own footprint. Renewable energy sources are generally cleaner, more sustainable and better for social development than fossil-fueled alternatives. As with any technology there are pros and cons to the use of renewables. Our report “Renewables on the Rise” clearly showed the benefits of renewable energy development. In this blog, author Hans Verolme looks at potential risks and problems associated with the large scale development of renewable energy technologies.

THE GOOD LIFE is a musical movie that shows young Nigerians looking for solutions for jobs, careers and justice in their lives. Some of them create their own power solutions, some demand solutions from election candidates. They all know that Nigeria cannot develop without concrete plans for rising supplies in electricity. THE GOOD LIFE needs POWER.

A local government should be the closest government to the people but in Nigeria it only has minimal implementation power. This is the experience of the organization Community Conservation and Development Initiatives (CCDI). In their climate change training programmes and various initiatives aimed at building local adaptative capacity for climate change resilience at local government level, they realized that initiatives and planned actions are constrained and hampered by poor land use planning and lack of integration of climate change factors into development agendas. In a participatory research project in Amuwo Odofin Local Government they critically analyzed the scope of actions assigned to local governments compared to state governments on existing land use policies, regulations and laws and developed a participatory risk reduction and management blue print.

In an effort at expanding the space for discussions on sustainable urban development in Lagos with specific interest on how the new development in Eko Atlantic City can be made to live up to its description as a city of the future, architect and writer Ayodele Arigbabu has created a narrative located in a fictionalized version of the new city, using the experiences of a young girl visiting the city on holiday as an opportunity to learn about the challenges cities face and possible ways of making cities more livable.

Nigeria’s renewable energy industry is tiny by all means, despite excellent conditions for electricity production from solar, small hydro and biomass sources. If Nigeria covered only 1% of its land mass with solar panels, it could produce 192,000 megawatts of power, compared to the 4,000 megawatts that are currently available on the national grid. In his contribution to the Green Deal Nigeria study, Huzi Mshelia describes the manifold efforts on energy policy and regulation, which have so far resulted in little results.

159 words to inspire you to think beyond oil… How would Nigeria look like once it has decided to go green on energy?