Nigeria's Climate Change Act

The Climate Change bill was signed into law by the President Buhari in November 2021 in order to provide Nigeria with a legal framework for the country to achieve its climate goals, achieve long-term social and economic sustainability, and resilience. Following the President's commitment made at the COP 26 in Glasgow of achieving net zero by 2060, the Act enacts an overarching objective of achieving net zero emissions between 2050 and 2070.

Notable clauses of the Act are as follows:
- It mandates the government to set a National Climate Change Action Plan and a five-year carbon budget (with quantified annual objectives) accordingly. Both of these are to be validated by the Federal Executive Council. The first carbon budget should be approved by November 2022.

- It creates the National Council on Climate Change and defines its members and attributions. The Council is in charge of implementing the National Climate Change Action Plan. The institution will be responsible for managing the newly-instituted Climate Change Fund. The Fund will be provisioned according to debates in Parliament, and enable the running of the Council itself as well as subventions. The Council will work with the environment ministry to organise climate action globally and for each economic sector. It will also work on identifying and implementing priority adaptation actions.

- It compels any private entity with 50 or more employees to put in place measures to achieve the annual carbon emission reduction targets in line with the National Climate Change Action Plans and requires the private entity to designate a Climate Change Officer for reporting. Private entities that fail to meet targets may be subject to fines.