The “dangerous humid heat” that engulfed western Africa in mid-February was made 10 times more likely by human-caused climate change, a new rapid attribution study finds.
Throughout February, western Africa was hit by unusually intense heat. Temperatures exceeded 40C in some regions, prompting the Ghanaian and Nigerian meteorological services to issue heat warnings.
The World Weather Attribution (WWA) service have analysed the region’s “heat index” – a measure that incorporates both temperature and humidity, to reflect the physiological impacts of the extreme conditions.
While the average air temperatures in west Africa reached 36C over 11-15 February, the heat index for the same period was about 50C, according to the study.
The study authors find that climate change made the heatwave 10 times more likely and 4C hotter. They warn that if global warming reaches 2C above pre-industrial temperatures, “similar events will occur about once every two years and will become a further 1.2-3.4C hotter”.
There was “very limited” data available on the impacts of this heatwave across west Africa, the study notes. However, the authors told a press briefing that heat is a “silent killer” and that lack of reported impacts does not mean the heatwave was not dangerous.
The report says that “to reduce heat-related morbidity and mortality in southern west Africa, there is an urgent need for improved monitoring and research on the impacts and risks associated with heat waves”.
Early heatwave
Countries across west Africa have been sweltering under unseasonably hot temperatures for weeks.
Wasiu Adeniyi Ibrahim is a meteorologist from the Nigerian Meteorological Agency and a co-author on the study. He told a press briefing that in west Africa, the most severe hot and humid weather of the year is usually recorded during March and April.
However, by February this year, the region was already reporting record-breaking temperatures. This intense heat was driven by an “anomalous high-pressure system over the Sahara region” which “carried hot air towards the coast”, Ibrahim explained.
On 7 February, the Ghanaian capital city of Accra recorded its hottest day in history when temperatures reached 38C.
The finals of the Africa Cup of Nations football tournament were played in Ivory Coast on 11 February. This year, for the first time, the Confederation of African Football included two-minute cooling breaks at the 30th and 75th minutes, with provisions for additional breaks under extreme heat.
The Nigerian Meteorological Agency issued a warning on 13 February after air temperatures hit 41C in the north of the country, stating that the heat could cause conditions including fainting, heat rash, “weakness of the body” and respiratory issues. The agency advised people to stay hydrated, seek shade and stay indoors as much as possible between midday and 4pm.
“Experts warn that the extreme temperatures, amid the epileptic power supply, could trigger diseases, threaten livestock, and lead to death,” the Nigerian newspaper Punch said, reporting on the heat warning.
The WWA adds that, across Nigeria, “doctors reported an increase in patients presenting for heat-related illness” and “people complained of poor sleep due to hot nights”.
The Ghanaian Meteorological Agency released an “urgent public service announcement” on 20 February, advising precautionary measures such as staying hydrated and avoiding direct sun exposure.
As the month progressed, hundreds of regional and national temperature records across the region were broken, including hottest February nights in Ghana, Benin and Togo.
‘Dangerous humid heat’
Extreme heat is particularly dangerous when combined with high humidity. When it is hot, the human body produces sweat to cool itself down. However, as humidity increases, sweating becomes less effective.
To assess the severity of the hot and humid conditions, the study authors analysed the “heat index”. This measure “combines temperature and humidity to reflect how it feels to the human body”, Dr Izidine Pinto – a researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute and co-author on the study – explained to a press briefing.
The study says:
“While the average air temperature in west Africa was above 36C, the heat index for the same period was about 50C, reflecting how a combination of humidity and high temperatures caused dangerous conditions.”
The authors focus on a region of southern west Africa where the heat was the most extreme, including Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and small parts of Guinea and Cameroon.
The maps below show the five-day heat index over this region averaged over 11-15 February (left), where purple indicates hotter temperatures, and the difference compared to the 1991-2020 average (right), where red indicates hotter temperatures. The blue boxes in both maps indicate the study region.
Pinto told the press briefing that as there was no meteorological station data available for many of the countries in the study region, the researchers had to “wait for the gridded datasets to be updated and validated for the region” before conducting their analysis. This delayed the release of the study findings, he said.
To put the heatwave into its historical context and determine how unlikely it was, the authors analyse a timeseries of annual maximum five-day heat index over the study region, shown below. Higher bars with darker colours indicate a higher heat index.
The authors find that in today’s climate, this heatwave was a one-in-10 year event.
Attribution
Attribution is a fast-growing field of climate science that aims to identify the “fingerprint” of climate change on extreme-weather events, such as heatwaves and droughts. To conduct attribution studies, scientists use models to compare the world as it is today to a “counterfactual” world without human-caused climate change.
They can also use these models to assess how much more intense or frequent the event would be in an even warmer world.
In this study, the authors investigate the impact of climate change on the maximum five-day heat index in southern west Africa.
They find that global warming made the west African heatwave 4C hotter. They add that if global warming reaches 2C above pre-industrial temperatures, similar events could become a further 1.3-3.4C hotter.
The authors also calculate that climate change made the heatwave 10 times more likely to occur, adding that similar events could occur every other year in a 2C world.
The graphic below illustrates these results. a pink dot indicates the number of years in every 100 that an event like the February heatwave over southern West Africa would be seen at different warming levels.
The square on the left shows a world without climate change, in which such a heatwave would happen less than once every 100 years. The middle square shows that in today’s climate, the heatwave is a one-in-10 year event. And the square on the right shows that in a 2C world, a heatwave of this severity could be expected every other year.
(These findings are yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal. However, the methods used in the analysis have been published in previous attribution studies.)
Under-reported
West Africa was not the only region to experience record-breaking heat in February 2024.
February 2024 was the world’s hottest February on record, and countries across southern Africa – including Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe – saw temperatures of 4-5C above the February average.
Africa’s record-breaking heat continued into March.
In Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city, many residents faced several weeks without water. “Authorities in Johannesburg, South Africa’s commercial hub, have blamed the ongoing heatwave for the lack of water in some parts of the city for several weeks,” Daily News reported on 13 March.
On 18 March, the health and education ministries of South Sudan closed its schools, after weather services projected an extreme two-week heatwave with temperatures of up to 45C. Parents were advised to keep all children indoors, and ministries warned that any school found open during the warning period would have its registration withdrawn.
BBC News added:
“Muslims, who make up around 6.2% of the country’s population, have been hit especially hard as many are observing Ramadan – a month of fasting. They are therefore not permitted to drink water or any other liquids to stay hydrated during the day.”
Between March 18-19, at least five countries in Africa, including South Africa and South Sudan, reported record-breaking temperatures.
However, the WWA study says that while the heatwave “potentially affected millions”, there is “very limited” data available about its impacts. As such, it says that very few heat-related impacts were reported by the media and government organisations.
“This, of course, does not mean there are no impacts”, said Maja Vahlberg from the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, who is a co-author on the study.
In fact, Vahlberg told a press briefing that early-season heatwaves are generally “more impactful than heat waves in the hot season” because “the human body has to very rapidly adjust to extreme temperatures”.
Heatwaves are a “silent killer”, Pinto told the press briefing, warning that “you only see the impacts later”.
The lack of reporting on the impacts of the heatwave “reflects the need to improve awareness of dangerous heat and detection of heat impacts”, the study says.
The post Climate change made west Africa’s ‘dangerous humid heatwave’ 10 times more likely appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Climate change made west Africa’s ‘dangerous humid heatwave’ 10 times more likely
Britain’s new prime minister announced in his first week that he will cut the cost of public transport and electricity, making lower-emission technologies like bus travel, electric vehicles and heat pumps more affordable for voters. But some of the funding for those policies will come from the budget for international climate finance, the government has said, raising concerns about fairness.
Former Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham took over from Keir Starmer as Labour Party leader and prime minister on Monday, appointing climate advocates Ed Miliband as foreign and development minister and Miatta Fahnbulleh as climate and energy minister.
On Tuesday, Burnham said his government would cut the value added tax (VAT) households and some small businesses pay on their electricity bills from 5% to zero from October 1, saving households £45 ($60) a year.
On Wednesday, he said the maximum fare bus companies in England can charge for a single journey will be reduced from £3 ($4) to £2 ($2.67) from January 1, 2027. The government said the subsidies to achieve this would be mostly funded by switching money set aside for overseas climate finance projects from grants to loans. It did not give further information in its announcement, while the UK’s transport minister told Sky News the plan is still being worked out.
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The floated changes to the climate finance budget were immediately criticised by groups working on climate justice for developing countries, including Bond, the UK network for NGOs, which described the decision as “disappointing”.
“Robbing Peter to pay Paul is not the answer and pitches marginalised communities in the UK against marginalised communities in lower-income and climate-vulnerable countries,” BOND CEO Romilly Greenhill said in a statement. “Climate finance must not worsen the debt burden of countries that are already suffering the worst – and most costly – impacts of a climate crisis they did not cause.”
Hunt for money
Burnham promoted both policies as measures to combat the rising cost of living and “give people breathing space”, with climate campaigners and industry groups noting they are also likely to reduce the UK’s climate-heating emissions by encouraging bus travel and the use of electric vehicles and heating.
But thorny questions remain over how the policies will be paid for. The government said Tuesday’s VAT cut for electricity would be funded by scrapping the previous government’s digital ID programme, but Darren Jones, a former minister involved with that policy, said it had been “unfunded” – a statement that dominated media coverage.
A day later, the government said the new bus fare cap would cost £454 million ($606m). Transport minister Heidi Alexander told Sky News that £54 million would be taken from an under-spend in the budget of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) and £400 million would come from changing unspecified international climate finance from grants to loans. The details “still need to be worked through”, she said, adding that the government “had wanted to make an announcement today”.
Mohamed Adow, director of Nairobi-based think-tank Power Shift Africa, said “climate finance was never meant to be a pot of money that governments raid when they need to pay for domestic spending”.
DESNZ had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication. “We’re not wanting to fleece anyone here, and we actually want to maximise the development potential of this money that is available,” minister Alexander said in her TV interview.
Aside from the controversy over their funding, the policies themselves were widely welcomed by climate campaigners. Jess Ralston, energy lead at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), said the tax cut on electricity bills “could help households to switch to electric heat pumps, protecting UK homes from becoming ever more exposed to the whims of Putin and Trump when turning on their gas boiler”.
The last few months have seen global momentum build behind electrification, spurred by the US-Iran war disrupting oil and gas supplies and driving up prices. The Turkish and Australian COP31 presidencies have announced a global target to boost electrification, backed by the European Union, Canada, Philippines, UK and others.
Campaigners call for lower power prices
While reaction to the VAT cut was supportive, some questioned whether £45 a year of savings per household is enough and called for more measures to cut electricity bills.
Friends of the Earth’s energy lead Imogen Dow said those on the lowest incomes should be given cheaper electricity through a “social tariff” and the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) think-tank – which is close to the Labour Party – said levies on energy bills should be shifted to general taxation.
Matthew Paterson, a politics professor at Manchester University, told Climate Home News that the most effective way to reduce electricity bills is to take on the UK’s private electricity companies, while consumer-oriented measures like the VAT cut are “tinkering around the edges”.
Jarrod Birch, head of policy and public affairs for the EV charging industry association Charge UK, said that while the policy would make home-charging cheaper, people who charge their vehicles at public points will still have to pay 20% VAT. The UK’s tax authority is fighting a court ruling that ordered it to reduce the tax motorists pay on public chargers to the current household rate of 5%.
Further measures will be the responsibility of Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Miatta Fahnbulleh, who is relatively new to politics after a career at left-wing, pro-climate think tanks the IPPR and the New Economics Foundation.
Michael Jacobs, political economy professor at Sheffield University and former adviser to UK Labour prime minister Gordon Brown, said Fahnbulleh would be a “climate advocate” who would continue the “progressive climate agenda” of her predecessor Ed Miliband.
“She’s a very creative policy wonk so I expect there to be lots of policy innovation under her,” he said, “I think she will be looking at new ways to encourage take-up of heat pumps and domestic batteries.”
Aid budget in Miliband’s hands
Despite reports he could be made finance minister, Miliband has been appointed Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. Miliband has attended many climate COP meetings over several decades, most recently representing the UK at COP29 and COP30, and has been targeted by the right-wing media for his support for climate action and opposition to new oil and gas drilling in the UK’s part of the North Sea.
In his new role, Miliband will be responsible for the UK’s overseas aid budget including its international climate finance, which the Starmer government had slashed to fund increases in defence spending.
UK cuts support for climate action abroad to fund military instead
Jacobs said he expected Miliband to prioritise climate and development in the UK’s foreign policy and to push Burnham and new finance minister John Healey to reverse Starmer’s aid cuts.
But there are fears Healey could try to cut the aid budget further to fund the military. Healey was a surprise pick for Chancellor of the Exchequer and grabbed headlines when he resigned as Starmer’s defence minister in June over what he saw as insufficient defence spending.
The post Will new UK PM’s green measures at home cause climate finance pain overseas? appeared first on Climate Home News.
Will new UK PM’s green measures at home cause climate finance pain overseas?
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, 22 July 2026 – Greenpeace Netherlands has launched legal proceedings against a multi-billion-dollar global expansion plan by the biggest meat producer in Australia, JBS, in an escalation of climate litigation against the livestock industry.
Greenpeace petitioned a Dutch court to compel the meat giant to disclose information in order to challenge its business policies in court, including a US$6 billion global expansion, for which almost half is earmarked for Nigeria.
Elizabeth Atieno, Food Campaigner at Greenpeace Africa, said: “JBS’ meat empire expanded hand-in-glove with Amazon destruction, colossal emissions, human rights and corruption scandals, all with barely a semblance of transparency. This is the business model it wants to export to sub-Saharan Africa. JBS promises food security, but its expansion in Nigeria risks causing irreversible environmental damage and the displacement of smallholder farmers to line the pockets of wealthy global elites.
“Nigerians know well from the legacy of companies like Shell the destructive impact wrought by unchecked corporate power. As Greenpeace Africa has argued before the African Court of Human Rights, states with jurisdiction over multinationals must hold those corporate actors accountable – wherever they operate in the world. We welcome this bold legal action: the Netherlands and other European states must not be safe havens for corporations like JBS seeking to evade their responsibilities.”
In light of JBS’ longstanding failure to publish accurate and reliable information on its climate, nature and human rights impacts or its expansion plans, Greenpeace Netherlands views accessing this data as a necessary precursor to formal litigation in order to support its case. The case has the potential to be the first climate litigation of this scale against the livestock industry. This could set a major precedent for future legal challenges against the industrial agriculture sector, a major source of global emissions, particularly of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, responsible for 0.5°C of warming since the Industrial Revolution.[1]
JBS, via its subsidiary JBS Foods Australia, is the largest meat and food processing company in Australia. With a weekly processing capacity of over 50,000 cattle, it accounts for almost a quarter of all beef processing in the country, as well as a significant presence in the lamb, pork and farmed fish markets. [2] In 2022, ABC’s Four Corners accused the company of ‘repeatedly failing to protect its workers from horrific injuries.’ [3]
Marieke Vellekoop, Executive Director at Greenpeace Netherlands, said “In a month where JBS has thrown its flagship environmental commitments onto the scrap heap, JBS’ disdain for basic transparency only adds to the impression that this meat giant has something to hide and is desperate to prevent its expansion plans from going public. We were hoping we wouldn’t have to trouble a judge with this matter, but JBS has left us no choice but to seek our right to information through the Dutch courts.
“JBS appears to believe that despite moving to the Netherlands, our rules do not apply to it. This legal action aims to prove it wrong – and lay the ground for a first major climate and nature lawsuit against the dangerous expansion of the global meat industry.“
At the centre of the dispute is JBS’ planned US$ 2.5 billion investment in industrial livestock production in Nigeria.[2] Civil society groups in Nigeria have raised urgent warnings that the aggressive expansion will threaten local food security, drive regional instability, and accelerate ecological degradation. There is no available evidence that JBS has conducted any impact assessments or community consultations in Nigeria, and local efforts to gather more information via Freedom of Information requests have reportedly been ignored.[3]
The escalation to the courts follows the refusal of JBS, the world’s largest meat company, to comply with a formal disclosure demand delivered by Greenpeace Netherlands in April. The environmental group is utilising new Dutch legislation, which grants parties with a legitimate interest the right to demand access to specific corporate data necessary to build litigation against Dutch companies.[4]
Greenpeace Netherlands’ lawyers allege that JBS’ historic business practices and future expansion plans are inconsistent with the company’s climate and biodiversity obligations and represent a breach of its Dutch duty of care, which requires companies to act in line with international human rights law.[5]
If the court rules in favor of Greenpeace Netherlands, it is entitled to seek the required information in the form of documents and from senior JBS figures under oath, raising the prospect of the Batista brothers being forced to testify in Dutch court. JBS reincorporated as a Dutch entity (JBS N.V.) last year to facilitate a dual listing on the New York Stock Exchange.
In April, JBS was forced to temporarily suspend its first annual general meeting since moving its headquarters to Amsterdam after it was disrupted by dozens of Greenpeace Netherlands activists.
Last week, JBS scrapped two flagship commitments to reach Net Zero emissions by 2040 and eradicate deforestation from its supply chain. It also removed any explicit reference to Indigenous lands from all of its current policies. Greenpeace Netherlands is concerned this indicates JBS is seeking to expand unconstrained by the climate, nature and human rights impacts of its business.
–ENDS–
Notes:
[1] The livestock sector is estimated to be responsible for 31% of global methane emissions (more than oil and gas operations). In comparison to CO2, methane is shorter lived (around 12 years) but has a much stronger ability to trap heat in the atmosphere over its lifetime: it has approximately 80 times more climate impact than CO2 when measured over 20 years. This means that changes in methane emissions have a more rapid effect on the climate than changes in CO2. See Greenpeace Netherlands letter to JBS dated 30 April 2026.
[2] JBS Foods Australia, Our Business
[3] ABC, Australia’s biggest meat company JBS is repeatedly failing to protect its workers from horrific injuries, 25 April 2022
[4] JBS announcement
[5] Experts raise concerns over the risks of industrial animal farming (The Sun Nigeria)
[6] Simplification and modernisation of Dutch evidence law (Fieldfisher)
[7] Greenpeace Netherlands petition to Dutch court available here. Media briefing with further details on JBS expansion plans, including in Nigeria, available here.
Greenpeace launches legal challenge against Australia’s biggest meat company
Climate Change
“Next year is too late for regulations”: Beetaloo Energy’s 2GW gas-powered AI data centre a “disaster proposal” destined to cause climate chaos
SYDNEY, Wednesday 22 July 2026 — Beetaloo Energy has secured land from the NT Government for a massive $40 billion “hyperscale” AI data centre near Darwin, which would be powered by 2 gigawatts (GW) of gas power fracked directly from the Beetaloo basin, prompting calls from Greenpeace for urgent federal legislation.
The proposal marks a dangerous escalation in the AI data centre industry’s expansion, which threatens to entrench fossil fuel infrastructure for decades and put immense pressure on the region’s fragile water resources — while continuing to be unregulated.
Joe Rafalowicz, Head of Climate and Energy at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “This disaster proposal for a 2GW gas-powered AI data centre in the NT is a shocking example of the unchecked expansion of hyperscale data centres in Australia. It is also, critically, more evidence for the urgent need for a moratorium on all new data centres until strong, binding regulations are put in place to protect our communities and climate.
“This proposal mirrors the frenzied, unchecked expansion currently wreaking havoc on communities in the US. We are seeing cowboy data centre operators treat Australia like a playground, steam-rolling ahead with projects that would lock down precious water resources and spike emissions, despite the overwhelming community opposition.
“Every day, more councils, communities and environmental groups are joining Greenpeace’s call for a moratorium on data centres, yet as of today there is still no system of safeguards or rules in place to regulate these companies.
“While Beetaloo Energy and the NT Government prepare to bulldoze ahead with this climate and water disaster, the Prime Minister is asleep at the wheel, promising to legislate a vague set of standards next year.
“Next year is too late, and anything less than mandating data centres cover their own energy demand, and then some, with new renewable energy is not enough.”
-ENDS-
Media contact
Lucy Keller on 0491 135 308 or lucy.keller@greenpeace.org
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