Description
ABSTRACT
Climate Fintech: Greening Our Hope For A Greener Nigeria
Felix Emmanuel*
The devastating impacts of climate change are felt across the globe, especially in the Global South, and in response to this, goals are set, strategies are drawn, and results are evaluated, to put our planet back on the green path of recovery. Nigeria battles with multiple impacts of climate change across every sector of her national life, and so she takes measures to stop or improve the degrading of environments, erratic and scanty rainfalls, extreme weather conditions, and food and water insecurity. The manifest impacts of climate change took centuries of massive pollution to build. This is why the results of our efforts to heal our planet are not immediately felt. Climate FinTech is contributing to greening the globe through its deployment for financial inclusion; advancement of sustainable consumption; promotion of sustainable investment and financing of renewal energy; and stabilisation of the global carbon credit market et cetera. In this article, we show that climate FinTech holds tremendous potential for impactful contributions to the greening of the globe, and in Nigeria and elsewhere, both out of patriotism to our planet and profit-drive, climate FinTech is already supporting the fight against climate change by deploying useful solutions. For each select area of Climate FinTech interventions, we show the potential and evolving results and point out the scantiness of legislation and regulatory measures to drive the FinTech industry to its full effect for our national good. We make a case for a more proactive regulatory approach and propose
solutions to identified problems.
Keywords: Climate Change, Climate FinTech, ESG, ESG Reporting, and Sustainable Development.
INTRODUCTION
Climate FinTech is the intersection of climate, finance, and digital technology1 for catalyzation of decarbonization.2 In Nigeria, FinTech has made remarkable impacts by extending financial services to the unbanked rural population, simplifying digital payment, granting access to quick credits, and financing the use of renewable energy. Interestingly, some Nigerian FinTech are beginning to channel their solutions more towards addressing the effects of climate change.
FinTech in Nigeria can do more in the struggle for a greener Nigeria if they consider, adopt, contextualise, and implement more climate-focused solutions. It is becoming fashionable for FinTech to become more climate-conscious in adopting business models and policies.
*LL.B, BL. Associate, Olaniwun Ajayi LP. The views expressed in this article are the personal views of the author. They do not represent the views of Olaniwun Ajayi LP.
- Adam Boutin and others, ‘Climate FinTech: Mapping an Emerging Ecosystem of Climate Capital Catalysts’ (2020) New Energy Nexus Report accessed 29 July 2020.
- Decarbonization is the process of reducing the amount of carbon dioxide that is emitted from human activities to the atmosphere.
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