Jonah Gbemre often has no electricity, but he says his home is permanently lit at night by the flames of waste gas being “flared” near his home town in Nigeria’s Delta State.
Like Gbemre, nearly half of Nigerians have no stable power supply, yet government attempts to harness gas belching from its oil fields to generate urgently-needed electricity or revenue have stalled.
And experts say that without progress towards its 2030 target of virtually eliminating flaring, which releases carbon dioxide along with polluting methane and soot, Nigeria cannot meet its pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20%.
(Graphic – Gas Flaring and Nigeria’s CO2 Emissions: )
(Graphic – Top 30 Gas Flaring Countries in 2019: )
Nigeria first targeted gas flaring in the late 1970s and, through various schemes and regulations, has more than halved it since 2001. Chevron, Shell and Eni, which operate in Nigeria, say they have cut flaring by some 90% and are working to cut it further. ExxonMobil and Total declined comment.
(Graphic – Gas flared by company field ownership in 2018: )
But as the largest sites were harnessed, progress stagnated and flaring rose last year, a government-run satellite tracker shows, while Gbemre has little faith in the state, which he notes missed its own deadlines in 2004, 2008 and 2020.
– Reuters