By Emmanuel Eneojo Akagu
Climate Change, a premise or a democratic platitude, it is what it is; the realities are audible to the deaf and visible to the blind. The earth is heating up, with temperatures 1.33 degrees higher than the 1900 level, causing polar ice to melt, raising the sea level and flooding coastal cities like Lagos and the Port of Spain at the sight of a little drop of rain water. Worsening the situation is the volume of green house gasses (GHGs) released into the atmosphere on a daily basis in the form of Carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning, Methane from wastes and agricultural activities and Nitrous oxide; and ozone depleting substances (ODS) from technological innovations meant to give us comfort, further retaining the heat energy from the infrared radiation of the sun, and depleting the ozone layer meant to shield us from its ultra-violet radiation. The result is more heat, more cancer.
Bradley Dalina once said if there is no solution, there is no problem to solve, but Dalina was never faced with a problem that could annihilate the entire human race in a millennium plus or minus, it is big alright, and we’re about to peregrinate through it like the perilous voyage through the Bermuda Triangle. The process of solving this problem has already begun since the Geneva Convention in 1979, with industrialized countries making a lot of commitments, but fast developing countries like Nigeria are obligated to make radical decisions in shifting to safer energy sources also, in order to create room for sustainable development.
Nigeria is in dire need of more power, more energy, as statistics from leading energy research institutes have shown that Nigeria has the lowest electrification per capita in the world. We could all hide our heads in shame, or we could arise to green technologies that are cheaper and are guaranteed to reduce our present GHG emissions. These technologies employ renewable sources to produce energy.
Renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, biomass, thermal, hydro, and what have you replenish themselves naturally without human input, and one would be tempted to include nuclear in the list. These could be employed in place of conventional energy sources to generate electricity, in heating and cooling, to power automobiles, and meet the energy needs of rural and suburban areas. This is the solution, the only viable one, to the crisis brewing in our environment, and I’m sure Dalina would agree.
“We’re Nigerians after all, a developing country, what do we care?” we stand to benefit from more energy options, cheaper installations than conventional ones, easy access to technology, and reduction in the amount of GHGs we emit. Due to dismal energy and power supply, institutions and production companies across Nigeria rely on off-grid energy sources, powered by fossil fuels which are very expensive overhead, and emitting monumental amounts of GHGs, also accounting for the largest emissions across Africa, as there are more autos and machinery in Nigeria than there are in the whole of Central Africa combined.
Recent studies by Energy Research Institute shows that renewable energy can help Nigeria achieve more that the 60 000MW of electricity, which the country needs to be categorized among industrialized nations, as the epileptic electricity made available is blamed for the poor industrial development of the country.
Today the global agitation for clean energy has never been more raucous, and the federal government should also have a genius plan to employ renewables in our quest for more power, more energy by removing the outdated energy policies that have failed the nation on a monumental scale in the past and present. This can be done, painstakingly channeling R & D and efforts in research institutions and policy makers into green technologies and renewables, and with one success after another, over a few years, I’m optimistic, we would achieve 100% energy from renewable sources; with a positive course and drive, we’ll see a future that will surprise the pessimists.

May the lawd laud and applaud the author of this epistle