Stakeholders in the environment have called on states Houses of Assembly, especially in the Niger Delta region, to develop policies that would allow individuals to generate electricity using methane, and possibly sell to the national grid.
This was contained in a communiqué issued on Wednesday by the Environmental Centre for Oil Spills and Gas Flaring, and the African Centre for Transparency, Accountability, and Responsible Leadership, after a one-day workshop on Methane Abatement in Nigeria, held in Asaba, the Delta State capital.
The communique stated that a multi-faceted and multi-level approach that includes public-private partnership, involving CSOs, government, and other critical stakeholders should be adopted due to the complexity of methane emission from anthropogenic sources.
The communiqué states in part, “There are extant solutions for methane abatement both at domestic and industrial levels, hence there is existing capacity to drive technology adoption. Commercialization of pilot technologies and upscaling therefore becomes important and needs its adoption.
“It is important to commit to effective and modernized waste management (landfill gas capture and utilization amongst others, sustainable farming practices) such as improved rice cultivation and optimization of livestock rearing and management systems.
“Need to be deliberate about incorporating political actors in the advocacy campaign, using political resources that we are privileged to access. This pertains to the strengthening of regulations that would drive methane abatement.
“There is a need for states Houses of Assembly to develop policies that would allow for individuals to generate electricity, using methane and possibly sell to the national grid. A low-hanging fruit in this case is the development of such policies which is later backed by law.”
The stakeholders urged individuals and organizations to familiarize themselves with the stipulations of the energy law, that empowers them to generate standalone solutions without having to sell electricity to the national grid.
They called for reorientation and massive awareness about the value of methane and its utilization needs to be created, insisting that political will is of utmost importance.
They said integrated engineered dumpsites (or landfills) need to be prioritized over waste collection sites; nonetheless, such waste collection sites need to be optimized to limit methane emissions in the meantime.
Earlier, a researcher on methane, Dr. OPB Opia told South-South PUNCH that methane is a potent greenhouse gas that contributes significantly to global warming..
He said one of the main sources of methane emission is from anthropogenic sources, which constitutes about 60 percent of global methane emissions, and hence played a critical role within the climate change discourse.
