The Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian Stock Exchange, Mr. Oscar Onyema, says there is significant market potential for green bonds in Nigeria.
He said as a developing market with a population in excess of 180 million people, with projected annual emissions of 900 million tonnes, the country required significant capital to develop mitigation and adaptation interventions that would reduce it.
He said this when the Federal Government held a stakeholders’ consultation on the pilot issuance of green bond.
The forum was part of a continuing collaboration between the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Finance to explore and develop a product that can leverage and channel resources towards viable green projects and contribute to the achievement of the nation’s development objectives.
He further stated that green bonds could mobilise funds from investors with strong environmental focus, who also craved transparency and lower risk appetite.
To this end, the Minister of Environment, Amina Mohammed, was quoted in a statement as saying that Nigeria, like most countries around the world, faced vast investment needs for the transition to a sustainable, low-carbon and climate-resilient economy.
The government, she noted, had made it clear that private sources of finance were needed, and that tapping into the international capital markets, as well as domestic capital, was crucial.
