Nigeria

Nigeria has a legally anchored climate framework and an economy-wide transition plan. The Climate Change Act (2021) establishes a National Council on Climate Change, five-year carbon budgets and a national Net Zero target (2060). The government’s Energy Transition Plan (launched 2022) is the central roadmap for shifting power, cooking, oil and gas, transport and industry, and is now the main public-facing plan for reaching net zero by 2060 while expanding energy access. Nigeria has also submitted a new “NDC 3.0” to the United Nations in 2025 and the Council’s website describes a National Climate Change Action Plan under development to align federal and state delivery. Implementation detail is improving (for example, financing and sector pathways in the Energy Transition Plan), but a single, fully consolidated, legally binding “green economy plan” with time-bound intermediate targets across all sectors is not yet published.

Nigeria’s corporate governance code (Financial Reporting Council, 2018, updated 2023) encourages diversity on boards but does not mandate gender quotas or employee representation. The National Gender Policy (2021–2026) sets public-sector targets for women in leadership but lacks enforceable requirements for private companies. ESG disclosure is voluntary: the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) provides sustainability reporting guidance referencing the SDGs, yet compliance remains largely optional. Mechanisms for broad public consultation on policymaking are limited and not institutionalised.

Public consultation is mandated in several core processes but is not consistently required for all policies and laws. The Environmental Impact Assessment Act requires disclosure and public participation on projects and strategic assessments, and the Federal Ministry of Environment’s EIA procedures spell out comment and hearing steps. The Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act (2018) creates a national commission and duties on public bodies (including inclusion in policymaking), but Nigeria lacks a single, nationwide law that mandates comprehensive consultation and social-impact assessment for all bills and policies. Sector regulators (for example, communications) run consultations, yet practice is uneven across.

Nigeria is taking steps to build natural capital and ecosystem accounts alongside standard economic statistics. The National Bureau of Statistics has worked with the World Bank and partners on System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) pilots (for example, land and ecosystem accounts in Kaduna and Nasarawa States) and has publicly outlined plans to integrate natural capital into national accounts compilation. This is promising, but a consolidated, maintained comprehensive wealth framework (human, social, natural, produced/financial) embedded in routine planning is still emerging.

Nigeria issued sovereign green bonds (₦25 billion in 2017; ₦15 billion in 2019) and launched the Sustainable Banking Principles under the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), which require banks to integrate environmental and social risk management. In 2023 the CBN began a pilot climate-risk stress test aligned with Basel III and released draft Climate-related Financial Disclosure Guidelines. However, a comprehensive green-finance strategy or national taxonomy is still in development.

Nigeria has made a modest shift towards green finance: new sovereign green bonds (2025) financing projects aligned with NDCs, a 5% environmental surcharge on fossil fuels in the 2025 tax reform bill, VAT exemptions on some renewable energy equipment, and a Green Bond Market Development Programme. Wider reforms, like mandatory climate risk disclosure, green budget tagging, and structural environmental levies, remain absent. Monetary policy still prioritizes exchange rate stability and inflation control.

Nigeria participates in regional trade frameworks (AfCFTA; ECOWAS) and maintains cooperation instruments (e.g., the U.S.–Nigeria Trade and Investment Framework Agreement), but there is no evidence that its trade agreements include binding sustainable-development chapters with dedicated liberalisation for environmental goods/services, UNFCCC/CBDR-linked market-access exemptions, or interoperability of green taxonomies/carbon pricing. The EU–West Africa EPA remains unsigned by Nigeria, so it is not applied. Domestically, Nigeria’s Climate Change Act 2021 establishes a carbon-budgeting framework and the National Council on Climate Change; the government has drafted a Carbon Market Activation Policy (2025) to structure high-integrity crediting, but no national carbon tax or ETS is operational, and no cross-border linkage arrangements are in force.

The Climate Change Act 2021 mandates the Federal Government to develop mechanisms for a national carbon market and carbon tax. Draft regulations for a domestic Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) and a carbon-tax framework were circulated in 2024, with pilots expected from 2025. Nigeria remains outside any operational national carbon-pricing system, though it participates in voluntary carbon-credit projects and REDD+ initiatives.

Nigeria's 2022 Energy Transition Plan (ETP) outlines a pathway to net zero by 2060, with decarbonization strategies for five core sectors (power, cooking, transport, oil & gas, and industry) and interim targets (30% renewable electricity share by 2030). The 2024 NDC Implementation Framework provides sector-specific objectives, KPIs, and timelines. The 2021 Climate Change Act established five-year carbon budgets and a National Climate Council to oversee cross-sector efforts.

Federal policy includes the National Policy on Plastic Waste Management (2020; updates published on the Ministry’s website) and Implementation Guidelines issued in 2025. Government and partners are developing a national Circular Economy Roadmap led by the Federal Ministry of Environment with EU/UNIDO support; stakeholder workstreams began in 2024–2025. As of 2025, there is no economy-wide CMUR target in official statistics and no single, adopted federal circular-economy law; measures remain focused on plastics management, procurement reforms, and programme pilots pending the Roadmap’s completion.

Nigeria’s federal automotive policy framework—the National Automotive Industry Development Plan (NAIDP) 2023—includes measures to stimulate EV assembly and charging-infrastructure investment; Lagos State’s Transport Policy (2025) and master plan reference electrification of BRT and rail integration. The federal Energy Transition Plan outlines a long-term shift to electric buses and zero-emission mobility, but there is no national law with 2030 targets for full electrification of public, private, and freight transport. Deployment is occurring via city-level pilots and fiscal levers rather than a binding nationwide mandate.

The significant development since 2021 is the launch of the Energy Transition Plan (ETP) in 2022. he ETP provides a detailed roadmap for achieving net-zero by 2060, covering multiple sectors (Power, Cooking, Transport, Industry, Oil & Gas). The ETP explicitly outlines the substantial investment required and mechanisms for financing, including leveraging private capital and international partnerships. The net-zero by 2060 target laid out in the ETP demonstrates increased ambition beyond the 2030 RE target, which is a 30% energy from renewable sources, often referred to as "Vision 30:30:30".

Nigeria has advanced its commitment to green job creation primarily driven by the Energy Transition Plan (2022). Further support comes from the revised National Employment Policy (2025), which now explicitly prioritizes green skills development. Tangible actions include the Labour Employment and Empowerment Programme (2025) and the Oando Foundation Green Youth Upskilling Program (2025), which are actively training individuals in green skills. The Energy Transition Plan estimates up to 340,000 jobs created by 2030 and up to 840,000 jobs created by 2060, primarily driven by the Power, Cooking, and Transport sectors.

Nigeria does not have a single, national just-transition law or framework, but key programmes include social and regional elements. The Energy Transition Plan targets universal energy access and clean-cooking progress while managing oil-sector shifts, and the Economic Sustainability Plan launched “Solar Power Naija” for five million household connections with job creation aims. These show social inclusion in the energy transition, yet there is no overarching framework with sector-specific guidance, benefit-sharing rules and a pipeline of projects explicitly designed as “just transition” across sectors.

MSME policy focuses on access to finance through the National MSME Policy 2021–2025 and programmes like the Government Enterprise & Empowerment Programme (GEEP) and the YouWin Connect/BOI Green Energy Fund. Several donor-backed initiatives (e.g., Solar Power Naija, IFC’s Nigeria Green SMEs Program) promote renewable-energy SMEs. There is no dedicated legal status for social enterprises, and green-transition incentives remain fragmented.

Nigeria has expanded its social safety net through the ongoing expansion of the National Health Insurance Scheme and the Home Grown School Feeding Programme, which by 2023 was reaching over six million children. While there is no national strategy explicitly linking social protection with environmental goals, some green-related initiatives have emerged, like the Great Green Wall Agency in 2024, supporting afforestation and rural employment, and the Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project (2022), which combined erosion control with job creation.

Nigeria approved a revised National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan for 2025–2030 and has submitted national reports under the Convention on Biological Diversity. National parks, wildlife and forestry laws underpin terrestrial conservation, while marine and coastal management is addressed through sector laws and plans. The 2025–2030 plan is reported as aligned with the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (the post-2020 global biodiversity plan). Public communications indicate a “halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030” objective, but detailed, regularly published progress assessments and interim targets are just beginning under the new plan.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has compiled pilot energy, mineral, and ecosystem service accounts and published them in the Natural Capital Accounting Roadmap (2023). Work continues on SEEA-aligned water, forest, and land accounts with World Bank WAVES support. A Natural Capital Committee is under discussion within the Ministry of Environment but not yet legislated.

Sector strategy is articulated in the National Agricultural Technology and Innovation Policy (NATIP) 2022–2027 (approved by the Federal Executive Council), with a published six-year implementation plan. Nutrition and food-security actions are framed by the National Policy on Food and Nutrition and the National Multisectoral Plan of Action for Food and Nutrition 2021–2025. Nigeria has also submitted and is implementing a National Food Systems Transformation Pathway under the UN Food Systems Summit process (with federal coordination updates in 2025). These instruments provide programme direction but do not set quantified, economy-wide ecological-footprint targets or time-bound subsidy-reform milestones for the food system as a whole.

Nigeria has mobilised some nature-positive finance and started to reform harmful supports. The sovereign green-bond programme (2017 and 2019) financed renewable energy and afforestation; a new Sustainable Bond Framework and impact reports were published in 2025. Nigeria has a validated National REDD+ Strategy and readiness work with results-based payment pathways in forestry. On harmful supports, the government removed the long-standing petrol price subsidy in 2023 as part of market reforms (with later debates on surcharges), though this was driven primarily by fiscal stabilisation. Separately, the National Council on Climate Change has been developing carbon-market activation policies. Targeted, routine fiscal transfers to local communities for biodiversity stewardship remain limited at national scale.

Pandemic-era recovery policy centred on the 2020 Economic Sustainability Plan. Green elements included “Solar Power Naija” (aiming for five million off-grid solar connections with local-content and jobs targets) and some grid investments, but the wider stimulus focused on business support, cash transfers and infrastructure. The International Monetary Fund tracker and subsequent reports show scale, but there was no broad green conditionality across support packages. In 2023–2025, fiscal reforms (including fuel-subsidy removal) and energy-transition initiatives continued, yet these were not framed as a dedicated “green recovery” package.