Nigeria may become dumpsite as Europe adopts green vehicles

Nigeria may be turned into a dumping ground for petrol and diesel engines that are now being phased out in Europe and other developed countries following the adoption of vehicles that use clean energy.

According to oil experts, the development may force oil to reach its peak by 2020 and cut supply to the market by two million barrels a day by 2025, the same volume that caused the oil price collapse in 2014 and 2015.

In fact, energy analysts at the Grantham Institute of Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London and Carbon Tracker think tank corroborated the claim and in a way warned countries like Nigeria of the danger in over dependence on oil.

Already, the costs of solar panels have fallen by 85 per cent in seven years at the international market, with battery costs dropping by 73 per cent over the same period as demand for electric vehicles increases by 60 per cent each year.

The latest report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) says the world is on the verge of an electrifying change that would have a cascading effect on the entire global energy industry. It adds that within as few as eight years, electric cars in Europe and North America would be cheaper to buy and run than traditional vehicles, which are powered by internal combustion engines.

While the experts said at least eight out of 10 cars plying roads globally would be green before 2030, Nigeria and other developing countries were marked to become dumping grounds for the old technology, a development which was projected to leave serious environmental impact.

President Muhammadu Buhari at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, United States had pledged to support a green revolution by taking climate action for sustainable development but no concerted effort has been taken to avert looming dangers in the automotive sector, experts noted.

Green vehicles also known as eco-friendly vehicles or environmentally-friendly vehicles produce less harmful impact to the environment than conventional internal combustion engine vehicles running basically on gasoline or diesel.

Blaming government for allowing non-environment friendly vehicles to flood roads across the country, a director at Lagos-based Carbon Exchange Trade, Innocent Azih, said that estimated 11.5 million vehicles, which currently ply roads in Nigeria, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), put the country’s environment and the health of the populace at risk.

Total SA’s Chief Energy Economist, Joel Couse had noted that electric vehicles (EVs) alone might constitute almost a third of new-car sales by the end of the next decade, adding that oil “demand will flatten out” if that happens.

Azih raised concern over the influx of second hand vehicles, noting that unless government acts fast, the country would be a thrash bin for hazardous technology.
On what could be done to avert the situation, Azih said: “We need a holistic instrument in the form of regulation that enables investors and the private sector to drive green resolution and enforce carbon emission reduction.”

Seeing that the global count of plug-in electrified vehicles has already crossed two million unit milestones, Deputy Managing Director, Kelwaram Chanrai Group, Victor Eburajolo lamented that Nigeria has no standard that meets the United Nations policy on green vehicles.

According to him, government could set stringent standards that would gradually phase out conventional internal combustion, particularly imported second-hand cars. Eburajolo said government must be very proactive in diversifying the nation’s economy not to be cut unawares by projected reduction in the demand for oil.

Director, Nissan Nigeria Regional Project, Sorin Profir, who cited ongoing green vehicles revolution in South Africa, stated that Nigeria only required necessary legislation and encouragement to have green vehicle across its cities

Profir said: “If you want green vehicles in Nigeria, first you must get rid of ‘Tokunbo’ and create the legislation that will encourage people to buy green vehicles. Proper legislations and reliable power supply will encourage Nigerians to buy green vehicles.”

While vehicle emissions, considered as a major source of urban air pollution are dropping across the world, recent Particulate Matter (PM10) measurement conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) to determine air quality across the world, recently ranked Nigerian cities especially Onitsha, Kaduna, Aba, and Umuahia as world’s worst.