Susty Events: Climate Finance Accelerator Workshop

I attended the opening plenary of the Climate Finance Accelerator (CFA) workshop hosted by the Climate Finance Accelerator team (Ricardo Energy & Environment, NDC.i Global, Climate Advisors Network) and the Nigerian Economic Summit Group held at the Nigeria Stock Exchange (NSE) Building on Tuesday, 22nd January 2019.

The Climate Finance Accelerator is an innovative international initiative aimed at attracting large scale investments for bankable sustainable projects that can transform Nationally Determined Contribitions (NDCs) on the Paris Agreement to Climate Investment Plans. Nigeria is the first country to host an in-country CFA workshop in Africa.

The workshop, which is a partnership between the UK Government and Nigeria had several stakeholders in attendance including the Honourable Minister of Environment, Suleiman Hassan, The Deputy British High Commissioner, Laure Beaufils and other financial experts, policy makers, climate activists, senior banking officers, and project developers. The Head, Shared Services Division of the NSE, Mr Bola Adeeko gave an opening remark where he spoke about the NSE’s commitment to providing efficient and liquid markets for investors looking to invest in sustainable projects. The Minister of Environment also assured us of his ministry’s effort in surmounting, eliminating, reducing or controlling environmental challenges in Nigeria.

“We have the moral imperative to help those that stand to lose from manmade climate change”

Laure Beaufils, Deputy British High Commissioner

There was a panel session with representatives of FCMB, Sterling Bank, Access Bank, Climate Bonds Initiative, the office of the Vice President, and Mr Kyari Bukar, former chairman of the Nigerian Economic Summit. The banks all spoke on their efforts to sustainability and climate change mitigation in Nigeria.

It is very timely that we are having these sort of events and partnerships in Nigeria; we have a population estimated to reach 400 million by 2050, we need urgent climate action and of course financing is a big issue when climate adaptation and mitigation projects come up. The world needs between $5-6 trillion to deliver on the Paris Agreement and it was interesting to learn that the British Government has spent £5 billion on 300 Climate projects globally.

I look forward to all that this workshop will get up to in the following days and the impact of the 12 low-carbon development projects selected out of 30 projects submitted. This adds to our wins on climate finance in Nigeria following the issuance of the first sovereign green bonds in 2018. The workshop closes on Friday the 26^th of January, 2019 at the Securities and Exchange Commission building in Lagos.