Governments want companies to be environmentally friendly and levy a fee on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, while international businesses are seeking partners with clean, dependable and energy-efficient production.
For instance, the Green Economy Initiative of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has been working with developing and least developed countries to assist them in the formulation and implementation of policy reforms and investments that catalyse transitions to a green economy.
This is to help put businesses on solid footing to meet the demands of a changing global economy, and to become more resilient, inclusive and sustainable – especially important as climate change challenges continue to grow.
UNEP is currently running the Green Economy and Trade Opportunities Project (GE-TOP) to identify policies and measures that may act as facilitators and overcome hindrances to seizing trade opportunities arising from the transition to a green economy. The goal is to achieve minimum emission-reduction levels needed to keep the global temperature increase below 2°C.
Other than this, experts have been crusading for governments to put a price on carbon to send a signal to companies and consumers to shift their production and consumption patterns.
This has, however, proven an important source of government revenue.
In 2019, alone governments globally raised $45 billion through carbon pricing.
Namely, Mexico, Chile and Colombia, are using carbon pricing as part of a broader strategy to decarbonise their economies.
The potential to create millions of jobs on the way towards a net-zero carbon economy is perhaps one of the most appealing reasons to focus on a green recovery.
Analysts said carbon emissions reduction represents a major opportunity for countries to boost growth, reduce poverty, and broaden economic inclusion.
Globally, there is consensus that Africa must join the rest of the world to facilitate compatible emission pathways, increase investment and innovation in clean technology, promote the achievement of the Sustainable Development.
The United States-based Brookings Institute’s Research from the New Climate Economy report showed that bold climate action could deliver at least $26 trillion in global economic benefits between now and 2030.
People are dying from pollution in South Africa
The case for carbon taxation
Given the already-increasing tax rates, experts say the cost of carbon emissions will motivate urgent action among companies to reduce their emissions.
According to the World Bank, there is a growing consensus that carbon pricing—charging for the carbon content of fossil fuels or their emissions—is the single most effective mitigation instrument.
The World Bank also added that there are a total of 88 countries who intend to use a carbon tax to meet their Paris Agreement goals. This represents 56 per cent of global emissions.
In particular, South Africa is the first country on the African continent according to Greenpeace, that has established a carbon tax. Companies which emit less pay less tax.
Supporting this, Deloitte International South Africa in its report said placing a price on emissions would encourage cleaner practices. It noted that climate change was one of the most pressing issues of the time and as the 14th largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world, South Africa has an important role to play in trying to resolve it.
While farming businesses would be exempt from the taxation of carbon emissions for the next five years, the government said farmers and associated producing in excess of 100 000t of GHG were liable for taxation. Grain South Africa had already implemented projects to determine the carbon footprint of grain production in South Africa. In Nigeria, a lot of advocates have emerged that are canvassing decarbonising or getting to net-zero carbon emission. They are calling on Nigerians to take advantage of renewable electricity, considered cheaper than fossil fuel to decarbonise electricity generation.
Thereby, the Nigeria Country Director, Global Campaign group Power For All, Ifeoma Malo is campaigning for a shift to renewables as an efficient way to bring power to rural communities and help clean up a country with some of the world’s worst urban pollution rates. She believes it will contribute greatly to reducing the carbon footprint of growing energy demand by the urban population.
Analysts said Nigeria was the world’s 17th biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in 2015, the second-highest in Africa after South Africa. Internationally, agriculture and livestock are said to be responsible for much of the greenhouse gas emissions experienced in some economies.
A reduction in emissions from these activities, therefore, it is believed would help to meet climate change mitigation objectives.
Scientists said carbon taxes are also effective at reducing the greenhouse gas emissions created by the destruction of tropical rainforests, making them even more critical to addressing the climate crisis.
So far, Nigeria’s agriculture was responsible for 13 per cent of the country’s total emissions in 2014, largely as a result of the rearing of animals including cattle, sheep and goats.
In its climate pledge, however, the government said it was determined to offset 74m tonnes of greenhouse gases every year by 2030.
The Agriculture Promotion Policy for 2016-2020 reiterated the government commitment to promote climate-smart agriculture.
Therefore, among industry players, the intersection of agriculture and environmental impact has been a topic of growing interest.
Stakeholders have brought up farming in the context of climate during the recent debates.
Sadly, agriculture in Nigeria has not been structured in a manner that makes it adapt to a variety of environmental conditions.
As the climate crisis intensifies, Nassarawa based rice farmer, Rotimi Williams said farmers were vulnerable as it directly targets their livelihood.
As with many policy issues surrounding climate change, Williams, would not want Nigeria to toe the line of South Africa to introduce a carbon tax as it will increase the burdens on farmers.
He said farmers do not need any form of a carbon tax because they have been adhering to stricter conditions on carbon emissions in the production chain.
Generally, experts believe this is a value to society of reducing GHG emissions.
The question from an economic standpoint is whether the benefits of GHG emissions reduction offset the negative impacts on farmer’s welfare resulting from a carbon tax.
One-off them is the Chief Executive, X-Ray Farms Consulting, African Farmer Afioluwa Mogaji, a believer in farming that is productive, sustainable and climate-friendly.
After years of land degradation, he has seen many farmers struggled to grow enough food for their families. Some of them are now using a wide range of methods to increase the organic matter in soils.
In the long term, he noted that a lot has to be done to improve the soil’s water absorption, nutrient supply and biodiversity, and help prevent erosion.
According to him, better soils raise farm yields, improving food security and making agriculture more resilient to climate change.
However, Mogaji told The Nation that farmers were more likely to make big efforts to cut carbon if there is a system in place to help them improve farm resiliency against severe weather events and increasing farm profitability.
He said farmers need all the encouragement focus on “smart” farming and the latest technology, as agriculture is a key future growth engine to create jobs and improve food security.
He believes there is a link between economic empowerment and sustainable and environmentally friendly agriculture. Mogaji wants the government to work with the agric sector to measure and reduce its energy costs and find ways to adapt to climate change. Increased temperatures are having a marked effect on productivity, and rising costs for producers in terms of more spraying and labour.
At the global level, however, the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research( CGIAR) research programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) has warned that global carbon tax would increase undernourished by 80 to 300 million people.
Scientists from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and the CGIAR Research Programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) explored how a global carbon tax together with land-based climate change mitigation options would affect the cost of major food commodities.
To do this, they used established climate stabilisation scenarios for achieving 2 °C with the Global Biosphere Management Model (GLOBIOM), a partial equilibrium model that considers both biophysical and economic changes.
Research showed that a $10 tax/tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent would achieve some mitigation cost-efficiently, and thus not raise food prices significantly.
However, the study revealed that a higher carbon tax such as $100/tonne – which would be necessary if the global community employed carbon taxes as a principle mitigation tool – would cause steeper food price increases, in large part because of the wide extent of inefficient food production practices and the cost of shifting from these practices to more efficient production.
It said: “Higher food prices would lead to more food insecurity and undernourishment in some countries. As long as current food production remains at low levels of productivity, the higher the carbon tax, the higher the food prices, and the more people who would experience food insecurity.”
Researchers estimated that a uniform carbon tax could increase the number of undernourished people by 80 to 300 million in 2050.
They found that the carbon tax would raise the price of most food commodities, but most significantly in emission-intensive beef, rice, and milk.
While food prices would increase across the globe, the study revealed that prices would increase the most in Oceania, Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia due to emission-intensive agricultural production, emission-intensive diets, or both.
Challenges
Given the increased political interest in reducing the negative environmental impacts of agriculture, including by mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, various tax instruments are emerging to improve environmental sustainability. One of them is the Carbon Tax. This is because energy use emissions have various negative externalities, including environmental damage, negative health impacts, and climate change effects. As a consequence, countries are instituting taxes on energy use as a means of charging for these damages, with the additional effects of reducing emissions. Nigeria has the potential to cut a reasonable per cent of its annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions arising from agriculture and livestock. Analysts believe the potential reduction could be achieved cost-effectively by efficiently utilising fertiliser, adopting zero-tillage and managing water in cultivation. The implementation of these measures will require the collaboration of the government, private sector, and farmers.
Climate change is threatening Nigeria’s food security with frequent dry spells, heat waves and erratic rainfall, adding to farmers’ woes.
As Nigeria population continues to surge, experts said a lot must be done to double food production by 2050. Thus scientists and policymakers are faced with the challenge of meeting the growing demand for food whilst also reining in on GHG emissions.
