The Co-founder, Sustainability School Lagos and associate lecturer, Centre for Petroleum, Energy Economics and Law (CPEEL), University of Ibadan, Dr. Olufemi Olarewaju, said the country did not have a future in oil anymore. According to him, one of the direct consequences is that there would be drastic reduction in the demand for crude oil.
“We were worried that oil was going to finish, now we are sure that oil is going to remain in the ground. With the new aggressiveness of automobile manufacturers, there is going to be a sharp demand in battery storage. We will have sharp demand for clean energy automobile. There will be significant reduction in demand for oil and that will obviously affect our economy,” Olarewaju said.
Apart from the anxiety over revenue shortfall, Olarewaju urged policy makers to develop a proactive end-of-life policy that will mitigate looming environmental pollution as Africa, particularly Nigeria, has been projected to become a dumpsite for phased-out petrol and diesel automobile products.
He said: “There have been discussions on end-of-life policy for automobile. But I am not aware if we have such a policy in Nigeria, so that makes it difficult for us to know what to do with these vehicles that come to places like Nigeria. We are facing a converging from waste perspective, which is an environmental issue and convergence from revenue perspective.
“The next thing we need to begin to look at is how to convert the challenge to an opportunity. We are incapacitated. We cannot stop or influence the global trend. We need to move the economy to non-oil. We need to look at the opportunities of the green energy itself. We can win in two ways; by contributing to climate change issues, which may affect Africa more than any other part of the world. We can also look at it from the economic diversification point. Private and public sectors need to get curious in investing in clean technology as an added component of what we are trying to do in economic diversification.”
Considering the poor state of electricity supply in Nigeria, Singh expected the country’s journey to green vehicles to begin from the point of stable power supply. Electric vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf and BMW have been introduced in South Africa.
The Director General, Africa Clean Energy Summit, Dr. Victor Fodeke, said the country required a holistic plan that would enable the introduction of green vehicles into the country.
“We cannot ban petrol and diesel vehicles in Nigeria. We need to look at the technology and infrastructure necessary for them. We need to put our national circumstance into consideration,” he said.
Oriental News Nigeria reports that while, Volvo announced it would stop the production of internal combustion engines vehicles, stressing that every car it makes from 2019 onward would be an electric motor, India’s Power Minister, Piyush Goyal, said only electric cars would be operating in the country by 2030.
Though UK-based IHS Markit said electric and hybrid vehicles currently account for only three per cent of global auto sales, the country has announced a plan to invest about £3 billion to cut illegal levels of air pollution. UK’s Environment Secretary, Michael Gove said the country would halt the sale of diesel and petrol cars and vans by 2040.