The “Policy Dialogue for Just Energy Transitions: Identifying Pathways to Prosperity Post Fossil Fuels”, co-hosted by Climate Strategies and Salzburg Global Seminar from September 8 to 12, 2024, brought together policymakers, decisionmakers, and leading researchers from ten oil and gas producing countries as well as representatives from international organisations. They shared and discussed evidence-based approaches to the transition from fossil fuel dependent economies to inclusive, equitable, and sustainable systems. As part of our efforts to ground the dialogue in evidence-based research, we commissioned five in-country briefs exploring just energy transitions in oil and gas producing nations. This briefing provides insights into the energy landscape in Nigeria.

• A major dilemma for Nigeria’s energy transition is export diversification away from fossil fuels, which constituted 92% of export revenues in 2023. Low levels of investments, weak infrastructure and macroeconomic instability have hampered previous diversification efforts. 

• Recent discoveries of commercial quantities of lithium can support economic diversification, however, these critical minerals must be harnessed in a way that protects the interests of all the relevant stakeholders, including local communities.  

• Ongoing political and fiscal decentralisation reforms, including within the Electricity Act 2023, provide a window of opportunity to reduce regional dependency on oil proceeds from the central government, and hence the pressure for continued oil production and exports.  

• High renewable energy potential and cost-competitive electricity generation offer a low-cost opportunity to increase and improve energy access and support green industrialisation in urban and rural areas.