LAGOS AND THE LOW METHANE DRIVE: WHAT SCIENCE SAYS ABOUT AFRICA’S MOST AMBITIOUS SUB-NATIONAL WASTE METHANE REDUCTION PLAN.

 

Lagos's 30% methane reduction target by 2030 equals an annual reduction of 34,400 tonnes of methane -- equivalent to taking 642,000 gasoline-powered cars off the road for one year. (RMI WasteMAP Analysis, 2025)

In 2023, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu made a commitment of an ambitious waste methane reduction plan. This made Lagos to become the first Africa subnational jurisdiction to formally join the Lowering Organic Waste Methane Initiative. Today, the state is doing the talk with action. Why methane, why this action and why now.

 Methane (CH₄) is the simplest hydrocarbon and a critical molecule in energy, climate science, and everyday life. Methane comes from both natural and human activities. About 60% of current emissions are anthropogenic. It is an invisible and and dangerous silent killer. It is odourless and Methane (CH₄) is the second-largest contributor to anthropogenic warming after carbon dioxide. What makes it uniquely important is the combination of two properties: its extraordinary potency and its relatively short atmospheric lifespan. The IPCC's Sixth Assessment Report (AR6, 2021) assigns methane a 20-year Global Warming Potential (GWP) of approximately 81–83 times that of CO₂, and a 100-year GWP of 28–34. Put another way, every tonne of methane emitted today does the work of 83 tonnes of CO₂ within the next two decades. Because methane remains in the atmosphere for roughly twelve years — compared with centuries for CO₂ — cutting methane emissions today produces measurable cooling within a decade.  colourless, but most powerful “blanket” trapping heat around our plant today.

 Why Lagos and Why Now…..

Lagos sits on a low-lying coastal plain at the mouth of the Gulf of Guinea, with more than 40 per cent of its land area covered by water bodies and wetlands and an average elevation under 15 metres. With a population of over 20 million and a projection that the figure could double again by 2050. It is very important to put every action in place to reduce and climate derivatives Lagos may contribute into the global scenario.  For Lagos Greenhouse Gas Inventory, conducted under the Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GPC), a total city emissions of 26,443,656 tonnes of CO₂-equivalent was recorded for the 2015 baseline year — approximately 1.3 tonnes per capita. That per-capita figure is broadly in line with other major African cities such as Accra and Dar es Salaam, but the absolute total is striking. Under a business-as-usual scenario, Lagos's emissions are projected to nearly triple by 2050, to roughly 72.8 million tCO₂e. Without intervention, the city would become a much larger climate problem within a single generation.

Lagos GHG emissions by sector, 2015 baseline

Sector	Share	tCO₂e (2015)	Primary source
Stationary energy	55.1%	~14,563,000	Generators, grid electricity
Waste	25.3%	~6,688,000	Landfills, wastewater, open burning
Transport	19.6%	~5,183,000	Petrol and diesel vehicles
Total	100%	26,443,656	Lagos GHG inventory (GPC)

 

Within that total, the waste sector is the second-largest contributor at 25.3 per cent — about 6.69 million tCO₂e a year. The waste-sector share alone is roughly equivalent to 29 per cent of Nigeria's national waste emissions — a single subnational jurisdiction accounting for nearly a third of a country of more than 220 million people. That concentration is precisely what makes Lagos a leverage point: an action taken at city level produces a result at national scale.

So where is the waste emission from: Methane generation is fundamentally driven by the degradable organic carbon (DOC) fraction of the waste stream. Lagos generates more than 13,000 tonnes of municipal solid waste each day, of which roughly half is organic. Lagos has a high proportion of organic waste (approximately 45-68% food waste) in the MSW stream. Developing countries typically have 40-60% biodegradable organic content in their waste streams, compared to approximately 14-41% in developed nations (Mathur et al., 2020; Ciula et al., 2020). This organic richness makes Lagos landfills prolific methane producers. The bulk of this waste are deposited at various landfill sites. Olusosun landfill site which account for a large percentage of this emission. A recent satellite remote sensing has placed Olusosun under direct observation. RMI's WasteMAP platform, drawing on plume observations made by the GHGSat satellite between October 2023 and September 2024 via SRON's TWOS Initiative, provides the first sustained satellite-based estimate of the site's annualised methane emission rate.

The methane challenge extends beyond Lagos. According to Climate Change Tracker data, methane accounts for well over half of Nigeria's total warming impact. In 2020, methane emissions from Nigeria's oil and gas sector alone reached 152.95 million metric tonnes CO2 equivalent (MtCO2e) — driven primarily by gas flaring and fugitive emissions from oil infrastructure (Afripoli, 2023). These represent approximately two-thirds of national methane emissions. Nigeria's Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), updated in 2021 under the Paris Agreement, commits the country to a 20% unconditional and 45% conditional reduction in GHG emissions below BAU by 2030. Specific to methane, Nigeria has committed to: ending gas flaring by 2030, deploying 13 GW of off-grid solar PV, and reducing waste methane by 10% by 2030. In November 2022, Nigeria announced new regulations requiring leak detection and repair on oil and gas infrastructure and mandating high-efficiency flares (CATF, 2022).

However, Lagos has clearly shown leadership in its policy and action. The Lagos LOW-Methane Portfolio is a published ambition action plan that translate activities into specific, time-bound, numerical targets. As a state we are committed to 30 per cent reduction in waste-disposal methane emissions by 2030, equivalent in absolute terms to an annual reduction of approximately 34,400 tonnes of methane — roughly comparable, in 20-year warming impact, to taking 642,000 gasoline-powered passenger vehicles off the road for a full year. The portfolio anchors the headline target to two priority goals with quantified content. Goal one is the expansion of organic waste treatment capacity to 2,000 tonnes per day by 2030, with collection systems established across 20 large food markets. Goal two is the decommissioning of five existing dumpsites by 2030, accelerating the closure of Olusosun and commissioning a new sanitary landfill with integrated landfill gas capture. CCAC's own analysis, based on the lines of action set out in the portfolio, projects 24,900 tonnes of annual methane abatement by 2030, with priority goal one alone delivering 13,300 tonnes per year and priority goal two contributing the remainder.

Beyond portfolio, we have hit the ground running, in the next eighteen-month the state is closing down five waste site and transitioning it to a sanitary landfills with integrated gas-capture infrastructure. Also, we are investing in organics waste treatment facilities. The Ikosi Fruit Market biodigester, is a clear example of the State Government commitment of policy direction to action. This will help convert large volumes of organic waste — primarily fruits and vegetables — which are formerly sent directly to landfill are now been challenged into biogas facilities. The LOW-M initiative targets the implementation of organic waste collection in 20 food markets and other large organic waste generators by 2030. Also, there is an abmbitious waste separation at sources initiative intended to separate waste at source. The proposed Lagos Recycling Initiative tend to mandate separate bins for wet and dry waste in households.

 When Lagos delivers the LOW-Methane Portfolio's 2030 targets, the city will have done something no other African subnational jurisdiction has demonstrated at scale: a measurable, satellite-verifiable reduction in waste-sector methane emissions, anchored to functioning treatment infrastructure rather than to declarations. The CCAC's projection of 24,900 tonnes per year of methane abatement, applied at IPCC AR6's twenty-year global warming potential, is climatically equivalent to roughly two million tonnes of CO₂ each year — comparable in scale to taking several hundred thousand passenger vehicles off the road annually. The science is clear about what is been done and the action that is on the ground. The implementation is the part that has to be earned. The science of methane is one of the few unambiguously good-news stories in climate policy: the gas is potent, but it is short-lived, and cuts deliver fast. The challenge is institutional, not chemical. Lagos has demonstrated to be a global test of whether one of the world's largest, fastest-growing, lowest-elevation megacities can still pull the lever in time.

Lagos stands at a critical inflection point. As Africa's most populous city and Nigeria's economic heartbeat, it simultaneously embodies the continent's development aspirations and its climate vulnerability. The scientific evidence is clear Lagos is committed to a low methane action. Yet the data also reveal a powerful opportunity. Lagos has the institutional will and the technical knowledge, however, it requires international partnerships to cut waste methane by 30% before 2030. A 24,900-tonne annual methane reduction — equivalent to taking 642,000 cars off the road — is not merely an environmental goal. It means cleaner air, fewer respiratory illnesses and new green jobs in a transition economy. This is ambitious and commendable.

 "For A Greater Lagos" and "A Greater Lagos Rising".