Amid the global push towards energy transition, fuelwood still accounts for about 90 percent of the total wood consumption in Africa, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Limited, Philip Mshelbila, has said.

Speaking at the Gastech 2022 Managing Director’s Panel session on the topic “Concerted Industry Action on ending Energy Poverty“, Mshelbila said 81 percent of African households use biomass while 70 percent depend on it as their primary  source of energy for cooking.

Energy poverty is a big concern for Africa as the push for a shift from fossil fuels to green and cleaner energy sources intensifies.

The NLNG CEO argued that energy poverty requires a balance action, with gas as the transition fuel, adding that energy security is key in socio-economic progress as well as in realizing the net-zero targets.

“Fuelwood accounts for about 90 percent of the total wood consumption in Africa, 81 percent of African households use biomass while 70 percent depend on it as their primary energy source for cooking.

It’s not just in rural areas, a reported 60 percent of urban dwellers also use woody biomass as an energy source for cooking,” Mshelbila said.

“Post covid-19, and with the reality that the pandemic has pushed an additional 5 million people into poverty in Nigeria alone thereby increasing the levels of energy poverty, energy security has taken on a much broader and more critical role in the journey toward socio-economic progress and towards achieving net-zero targets and decarbonizing economies.”

Mshelbila noted that if the world does not achieve Sustainable Development Goal 7, which aims to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all,  it will even be much difficult to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

According to him, by 2030, which is the  delivery date of SDG-7, it is estimated that there will still be about 650 million people without access to electricity.

“At the heart of the issue is this; if we do not achieve SDG7 (Sustainable Development Goal 7: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all), we make it much harder to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050,” he said.

“The discourse of energy transition, particularly in the aftermath of the Glasgow climate talks at the end of the year and the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement, must therefore prioritise energy accessibility as the central challenge in delivering those commitments and obligations.”

“There are three main ways in which the consumption of oil and gas can meet the needs of people living in poverty today:

“At Nigeria LNG Limited, we are working to align with national objectives.

We are leading the way in expanding LPG for domestic utilization, initiating the first steps towards LNG utilization in the domestic space with projects NLNG and LPG, NLNG and LNG and NLNG and Bonny (Electricity Generation).

“These actions, given the right enablers, will mature to support the energy transition objective.”

Gastech 2022, which held in Milan, Italy, had over 750 exhibitors, and provided the platform for players to showcase new global products, solutions and technologies across the gas, liquefied natural gas, hydrogen and energy value chain.