IT is high time that Nigeria evolved a comprehensive survival plan to cope with the drastic shift in energy paradigm from fossil fuels to renewable sources. Gradually, the momentum is gathering.
One by one, the industrialised and developed countries of the world are signing up for this shift which will take the wind from the sails of oil economies like Nigeria.
On November 15, 2014, Saturday Vanguard published a story entitled: “Nigeria’s Economy May Collapse By 2050”, and we warned: “One day, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD, countries may gather in Kyoto, Copenhagen or some other city, and with a stroke of the pen, make the burning of fossil fuel illegal as the British Empire did to slave trade in 1807 and to slavery itself through the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833.” Again, a recent edition of Reader’s Digest listed the burning of fossil fuels among the eight things that would probably become internationally illegal in the next 50 years.
“As temperatures around the globe inch up, world leaders are cracking down on the second largest source of climate change: fossil fuels used in transportation, which account for more than half of a typical household’s carbon dioxide emissions,” said the article.
In Germany, the leading country in renewable energy technology, about 12.4 per cent of their energy consumption comes from renewable sources as of end of 2015. In 2009, United States invested $112 billion in green technology, while China threw more than $20 billion into renewable energy projects. These happened a few years ago. Since then, massive investments into renewable technology have continued.
The United Kingdom, France, China, India and some other countries have promised to end internal combustion engines in favour of electric vehicles by 2050 or earlier.
Up to eight states in the United States have so far made their own goals to sell only zero-emissions vehicles over the next 35 years. The U.S. Federal Government is likely to adopt the trend.
Right now, oil-producing nations like Nigeria are the sellers of energy in form of crude oil, and the West is the buyer. At the completion of this renewable energy revolution, the West will become sellers of renewable energy technology while Nigeria becomes the buyer.
Our economy will lose its comparative advantage. The big question is: What are those entrusted with the management of our economic future doing about the approaching third industrial revolution?
Instead of working out the answers to this challenge, our ruling class is still frantically searching for oil deposits in Chad, Sokoto and Benue basins as if our oil rent-seeking bonanza will last forever.
To be forewarned is to be forearmed. Now is the time for us to put on the proverbial thinking cap to ensure we do not lose out.
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