Economy
Climate Change Pushes Reps to Develop Non-Oil Sector
The emergence of the climate change dilemma has led to many calls for reduced dependence on hydrocarbon and fossil fuels. To this effect, on Wednesday the Nigerian House of Representatives instructed its appropriate committees to work closely with stakeholders to produce a 10-year framework for the use of available resources for the development of other sectors.
The committees which were provided this instruction are Climate Change, Gas Resources, Environment, Solid Minerals and Petroleum Resources. These mandated committees have been given a deadline of 12 weeks to report back to the House for more legislative action.
This action followed the acceptance of a motion made by Hon. Dennis Idahosa on the “Need to Create an Economic Revenue Road Map for the future of Nigeria” at the plenary session.
It was noted by the house that the 26th meeting of the Conference Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNCOP26) which focuses on addressing the climate issues in coming decades was held in Glasgow between 31st October and 12th November.
The House showed its awareness of the resolution passed at UNCOP26 2021 in Glasgow on November 12, agreeing to scale down fossil fuel COAL in order to constrain global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to the pre-industrial levels.
The House also recognized that the Oil and Gas sector is Nigeria’s biggest revenue generator, with the sector accounting for more than 65% of the country’s entire revenue with a production capacity of about 25 million barrels of oil per day.
The legislative body was worried that after the resolution by major countries at the UNCOP26 2021 Summit, countries like Nigeria which depend largely on hydrocarbon and fossil fuels as sources of revenue will be worst hit.
It also expressed worry over Nigeria’s futuristic plans made in the past which did not achieve the desired result. The House then went ahead to acknowledge Nigeria’s many potential sources of revenue, deciding to place attention on them early so that they can be of great benefit to the nation.