Carbon Market: Nigeria Rolls Out Tough MRV System to Draw Investors
By: Abudu Olalekan
Nigeria wants its carbon market taken seriously. And it is betting on data to get there.
Mrs. Omotenioye Majekodunmi, Director General of the National Council on Climate Change (NCCC), said as much in Abuja on Tuesday, October 6, 2026, at a high-level roundtable her office put together with the European Union. The goal, she said, is simple enough on paper: build a strong Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) system, and let the big private money follow.
Everything, by her account, is more or less in place.
Majekodunmi, who was represented at the event by Mr. Michael Ivenso, Director of Energy, Transportation and Infrastructure at the NCCC, said Nigeria is determined to turn its climate commitments into something that actually pays — jobs, investment, revenue, not just pledges.
“Carbon markets are only as strong as the integrity of the underlying credits,” she said.
Her point was blunt. Nigeria is not interested in hosting a market where nobody can tell what is real and what isn’t. No transparency, no credibility, no deal.
She explained that the country is putting in serious work to make sure carbon projects deliver real, additional and lasting mitigation — while also protecting the environment, lifting host communities, and giving investors and project developers a fair return.
Still, she was careful not to oversell it. Carbon markets, she said, are not some magic fix for Nigeria’s development and climate headaches. But handled properly — with openness, trustworthy MRV, and stakeholders who actually talk to each other — they can push sustainable development forward in a big way.
Then came the challenge. The NCCC boss told participants to stop talking in circles and come out with a real roadmap, with deadlines attached, that can make Nigeria the go-to destination for high-integrity carbon investment on the continent.
A national registry, finally
“A major component of the new approach is the operationalisation of a unified and interoperable national carbon registry,” she said.
That registry, she explained, will keep a digital record of every credit earned, issued, transferred and retired in the country. The idea is to kill double-counting before it starts and give buyers something they can actually verify.
The council is also pushing hard on digital MRV tools — remote sensing, IoT sensors, geospatial data, distributed ledger tech. The sort of thing that cuts verification costs and timelines, and makes emissions data far harder to fudge.
“Frameworks on paper do not trade carbon — transparent and verifiable data does,” she said, calling MRV the backbone of any credible market.
Without it? Buyers can’t tell if the emission cuts they paid for ever happened. Regulators struggle to track emissions or stop the same credit being sold twice. And communities have no way of checking whether the benefit-sharing promises made to them are being kept.
Brussels is watching, and buying in
Ms. Yolanda San Jose, Head of Section, Green and Digital Economy at the EU Delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS, said carbon markets are becoming central to cutting emissions, raising finance and pulling in investment.
“To do so effectively, however, they must be underpinned by credible systems that ensure transparency, accountability, and environmental integrity,” she said.
For Nigeria, she argued, building a solid national carbon market system is both a necessity and a genuine opportunity — one that ties climate targets to development priorities, draws in investment, and sets the stage for a low-carbon economy.
The EU, she added, is glad to be part of it.
“We consistently stand for credibility and integrity, but we also recognise the investment value of well-functioning carbon markets, where Nigerian and European interests can converge,” she said. “We believe that today’s dialogue, followed by strong national ownership, is essential to building effective climate policies and lasting business relationships.”
Forests at the centre
Representing the Ministry of Environment, Mrs. Halima Bawa-Buhari said the ministry is working toward a partnership that produces a robust MRV system — one strong enough to support a high-integrity carbon market and feed directly into the Securing Nigeria’s Forest Future (SNFF) financing roadmap.
Forests, she stressed, sit right at the heart of Nigeria’s climate response. They store carbon, cool the land, soften the blow of natural disasters, and keep millions of people fed, employed and medicated.
“This forest and its resources do so by providing carbon storage, biodiversity, soil protection, water regulation, and other ecosystem services, supporting millions of Nigerians, particularly rural and forest-dependent communities,” Bawa-Buhari said.
Olalekan A. Abudu is a seasoned and dedicated News Journalist at REPORTERS ROOM, with over eight years of experience. He specializes in politics, climate change, health, and education, while also covering security, economic, and judicial issues. Committed to accuracy and balanced reporting, Olalekan exemplifies the principles of public-interest journalism.