The US special presidential envoy on Climate Change, Senator John Kerry, has said that the United States is to commit $200 million to assist Nigeria’s clean energy transition programme.
Speaking during his meeting with Nigeria’s Minister of Environment, Mr. Mohammed Abdullahi, on Tuesday in Abuja, Sen. Kerry said that the support was captured under the US Clean Energy Demand Initiative and that it would help countries to implement their clean energy programmes as well as buying and production of green products.
Sen, Kerry, who signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Nigerian Minister on the initiative, said that the programme would also help to address the climate crisis and create jobs for Nigerians.
“The initiative is also to accelerate the marketplace creation so that it will help the transition programme faster and help to achieve a clean energy economy as well as dealing with the climate crisis,” local media reports quoted Kerry as saying.
“We have $200 million at the moment committed to the startup in the process of safety for the programme. But we know that ultimately this transition is going to take billions of dollars and even trillions of private investment.
“We talked today about the ways in which we can be helpful to bring a major amount of capital to the table with technology to help Nigeria move faster to the clean energy economy. That is the future and all of the citizens of Nigeria will benefit from cleaner air,” he added.
Kerry said the US hopes to assist Nigeria in achieving the goals set out in its nationally determined contributions (NDCs).
Responding, Mr. Abdullahi thanked the US government for considering Nigeria as one of the countries to participate in the Clean Energy Demand Initiative.
The minister said that the essence of the initiative was to ensure healthy and clean energy accessibility in Nigeria.
At his meeting with Nigeria’s Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Mr. Timipre Sylva, in Abuja on Tuesday, Sen. Kerry said that Nigeria was one of the countries in Africa that would suffer the most from the consequences of climate crisis.
Kerry said that emissions from Nigeria or anywhere in the world would affect Mother Earth.
GIK/APA