Thread by @davidfickling

A net zero target from Nigeria is truly extraordinary, and a testament to the level of ambition we're seeing from emerging economies now.

There is no way this would be happening if zero-carbon technologies hadn't so drastically undercut fossil fuels on cost.

https://twitter.com/chuks_okereke/status/1455534795266666507

Nigeria is of course Africa's biggest oil producer with the world's biggest conventional reserves after the Middle East, Russia and the U.S., roughly equal with Venezuela.

And it is at the bottom of the escalator of energy-intensive development and industrialization that India is now climbing and China is stepping off.

Sub-Saharan Africa doesn't get a lot of attention at climate talks because its carbon footprint is so low right now and not likely to rise dramatically in the coming few years the way we see with the big Asian economies.

But it will be home to one in three people in 2100, so the path it takes is absolutely crucial. I'm not sure it will be easy for Nigeria. Despite a good solar resource, it doesn't have a great landscape for wind power and hydro potential is insufficient.

And yet oil has been as much of a curse there as it has been anywhere.

As I argued earlier this year, a post-oil Nigeria might finally manage to follow the rather positive development path of post-oil Indonesia:

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…