‘Nigeria’s Green Bond oversubscribed in the stock market’

The Director of Climate Change Department, Federal Ministry of Environment, Dr Yerima Peter Tarfa has disclosed that Nigeria’s Green Bond which was issued on December 17, 2017 is doing very well in the stock market and is running to about 10.69b, saying it is over subscribed.

Tarfa who stated this yesterday at a meeting to review the success of the project in preparation for the second quota, said Nigeria is first in Africa to have presented the Green bond in stock market.

The Green Bond, according to him, is to leverage on the stock market to implement climate friendly projects to help the country meet its commitment to the Paris Agreement.

He said what the success of the green bond portends for the country is that they have to discover innovative way of generating resources from the capital market to undertake projects that have climate change.

While noting that by 2020 all parties to Paris Agreement are expected to give a statutory report on their achievements and challenges towards achieving the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), the director said Nigeria is committed to reducing emissions by 20 per cent unconditionally by the year 2030.

“What that implies is what we have to do to transform our industries, economy, and transform other socio economic activities in such a way that we develop sustainably through projects that needs to lower emissions of green house gasses.

He explained that they have issued the initial pilot issuance and three projects were able to scale through, which are Energizing Education, Renewable Energy Micro Utility project as well as the afforestation project within the Ministry of Environment.