Nigeria receives 2018 Green Bonds Award

…Green Bond Pledge launched

The Federal Government of Nigeria on Wednesday March 20, 2018 received the 2018 Green Bonds Award under the category of ‘New Countries Taking Green Bonds Global’ at the Annual Green Bonds Conference in London.
The Award was received by H.E Ambassador Kabiru Bala, Deputy High Commissioner/Head of Mission, Nigeria High Commission, London, United Kingdom.
Speaking from Abuja, Minister of State for the Environment, Nigeria, Ibrahim Usman Jibril says “Nigeria take pride in being the first African country to issue a sovereign green bond and the forth in the world. Today’s event marks a unique and historic day in the efforts of Nigeria in tackling climate change.”
The issuance of a green bond by Nigeria delivers on program 47 of its economic recovery and growth plan (ERGP), in addition to meeting the expectations of Article 2 of the Paris agreement.
The Federal Ministry of Environment as custodian of the Nigeria’s commitments under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has provided considerable direction to the process of issuance to ensure that the key elements needed for identification of projects that will meet the green credentials are in place.
The Ministry, under the leadership of Jibril, kick-started the Green Bond issuance process in September 2016, with a stakeholders forum that attracted key development partners, capital market operators and public sector institutions.
In November 2016, the Ministry issued its Green Bond Guidelines drawing from the International Capital Market Association (ICMA) Green Bond Principles (GBP). Working through the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Climate Change (ICCC), it engaged various Federal Government Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to identify projects with green credentials that will provide the foundation for issuance of the green bond. In agreement with the Minister of Finance (MOF), the projects are required to be included in the budget approved by the National Assembly and assented to by the President.
The Nigeria Green Bond initiative, arising from that provision, is a plan to issue N150 billion in green bonds: a pilot issue of N12.384 billion in the 3rd quarter of 2017, and the balance over the course of the budget year.
Similarly, the Green Bond Pledge, a new initiative that seeks to have cities, public authorities and world’s largest corporates commit to increased use of green bond finance to ensure new infrastructure meets the challenges of climate change and contributes to the accelerated transformation of the economy that is necessary and achievable by 2020 has been launched. The Pledge involves a simple declaration with broad and far-reaching impact.
In opening remarks at the launch event in London, Mission2020 leader and former UN Climate Change chief Christiana Figueres called on cities, governments and corporations to increase the use of green bonds to finance infrastructure programs.
Developed by international climate finance and sustainability groups, the Green Bond Pledge supports the goals of the Paris Climate Change Agreement. It is based on the premise that public and private sector bonds financing long-term infrastructure and capital projects need to address and incorporate climate risk and impacts. Green bonds contribute to environmental and climate outcomes and their use signals that these factors have been deliberately incorporated into the financing planning and deployment of new projects and developments.
More than a dozen organizations from around the globe have helped to develop the pledge, including the Climate Bonds Initiative, Mission2020, CERES, CDP, Citizens Climate Lobby, California Governor’s Office, California Treasurer’s Office, Global Optimism, NRDC and The Climate Group.
Signatories will be widely sought from cities, municipal authorities and corporations. The initial aim is to gather significant momentum in the run up to the September 2018 Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco, with the campaign continuing into 2019.
The groups also released on Tuesday an invitation to institutional investors to be signatories supporting the proposition that climate-related risk will increasingly exert pressure on infrastructure and capital project integrity, which bond issuers and investors must pay attention to when committing public resources and investment capital. The international green bond market, along with other green investments, not only provides a useful mechanism to finance solutions to climate change, but also represents an investment.
Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of UN Climate Change and a Global Climate Action Summit co-chair said:
“Financing the transition to a low carbon, resilient economy will be a key to ever more ambitious national climate action plans and realizing the Paris Climate Change Agreement goals.”
“Green bonds are among an array of exciting and rapidly growing, new financial instruments that are going to help us get there. I warmly welcome the Pledge as one among many inspiring new initiatives that will launch climate action in 2018 to the next level of ambition.”