Since the start of this year, Africa’s most populous nation Nigeria has faced prolonged stretches of severe heat.
A recent quick-fire analysis found that the conditions in February, when temperatures exceeded 40C, were made 10 times more likely by human-caused climate change.
But the heat is still ongoing, with temperatures reaching a record 44.8C in Sokoto, a city in north-western Nigeria, on 1 April.
With records of heat and its impacts lacking in Nigeria, Carbon Brief speaks to doctors, farmers and meteorologists about how this episode of extreme weather is affecting the country.
Health impacts
The ongoing extreme heat in Nigeria is having a range of health impacts – and most of these are not being routinely recorded, experts tell Carbon Brief.
On 28 March, Nigeria’s national electricity grid collapsed, plunging the country into a general blackout for the second time during the heatwave.
Despite its wealth of oil and gas, blackouts are common in Nigeria and many people rely on petrol and diesel generators to cool their homes. However, fuel prices have skyrocketed in the past year, putting such alternatives out of the reach for many Nigerians.
The impact of the heat is “catastrophic”, Dr Ugo Uguwanyi, a doctor in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city, tells Carbon Brief:
“Don’t even bother to step out from 10am to 6pm. And make sure you burn the diesel to power the air conditioning to be able to sleep at night.”
Information about the heatwave’s impact is limited, but this does not mean the weather conditions are not dangerous, according to the authors of the recent analysis into the role of climate change in Nigeria’s extreme heat. Rather, a lack of systematic reporting may obscure what they described as a “silent killer”.
The study’s authors called for “improved monitoring and research on the impacts and risks associated with heatwaves”.
Nigeria’s dry season runs approximately from December through to March – although it is longer in the north of the country and shorter in the south. Temperatures build during this season, typically bringing more reported cases of “meningitis, stress, stroke, blood pressure and stroke”, Dr Uguwanyi says.
Such cases are likely to increase during intense heatwaves, which are projected to become more common if global warming continues to accelerate, he adds.
Dr Ebbi Robinson, chairman of the Nigeria Medical Association in the oil-rich, southern state of Rivers, adds that while “there is no specific documentation”, extreme heat typically brings an increase in hospital visits to dermatologists, with symptoms such as rashes and itching.
He says that his association is rolling out new methods to warn people of the health impacts from extreme heat:
“We are making radio jingles and banners to let people know these heatwaves are real and sensitise them on how to mitigate against the direct and indirect consequences.”
In mid-February, the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) issued a public forecast warning on the prolonged heatwave.
The agency advised citizens to stay hydrated, wear light clothing and avoid direct exposure to high temperatures during peak periods. A group of Nigerian doctors also issued safety tips.
Wasiu Adeniyi Ibrahim, a meteorologist at NiMet, tells Carbon Brief:
“Heatwaves, characterised by prolonged periods of excessively hot temperatures and humidity, are becoming more frequent and intense.
“We have observed a departure of 2-4C from normal (long-time average temperature, 1991-2020) in the month of February. It is clear that climate change is bringing more and more dangerously hot days to Africa.”
Workforce impacts
In February, NiMet’s director of weather forecast services, Vincent Weli, advised that a state of emergency be declared in states most affected by the heatwave and workers be allowed to take breaks between noon and 3pm. Speaking to Nigeria’s Channels Television, Weli said:
“Of course, you know, with high temperature, cognitive development will be affected and productivity will be affected. There will be a loss of concentration.”
The call was necessary as “the condition was favourable for an outbreak of meningitis”, Ibrahim explains to Carbon Brief:
“We observed high dust concentration combined with this excessive heat which could trigger a meningitis outbreak. Epileptic power supply, low ventilations and other factors could make the situation worse, if not properly controlled.”
Meningitis, an inflammation of the membranes covering the brain and the spinal cord, is more easily spread in extreme heat and dusty conditions.
However, no such directive has been issued by state governments.
“Many state governments in Nigeria are not taking weather and climate information very seriously,” Ibrahim says.
Meanwhile, in Lagos, Nigeria’s most populated city, ride-hailing drivers are operating under “melting” conditions, stuck between preserving their health or livelihood, according to a Rest of World report.
Agricultural impacts
The heatwave is also expected to reduce agricultural productivity, a sector that contributes about 22% to Nigeria’s gross domestic product (GDP) and accounts for more than a third of total employment. Ibrahim tells Carbon Brief:
“Heatwaves can reduce agricultural productivity by causing heat stress to crops and livestock.
“It could negatively affect crop growth and development by disrupting physiological processes, such as photosynthesis, respiration and water uptake. High temperatures can lead to wilting, leaf scorching and reduced nutrient uptake, impairing plant growth, fewer fruits and reducing yields.
“In animals, heatwaves may reduce feed intake, lower weight gain, decrease milk production, reduce reproductive performance and [cause] animal mortality, if proper mitigation measures are not in place.”
Again, there is not a lot of data on how the current heat is affecting agriculture in Nigeria.
However, the national secretary of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria, Yunusa Halidu, tells Carbon Brief its members expect the heatwave to affect productivity yield this year. He says:
“The heat is extreme this year,although we have been expecting it, as we work with the Nigerian Meteorological Agency. We know it is global warming and we are working to see how we can mitigate the effects.”
The post How Nigeria is reeling from extreme heat fuelled by climate change appeared first on Carbon Brief.
How Nigeria is reeling from extreme heat fuelled by climate change
The World Bank’s work to tackle climate change is under threat as the Trump administration pushes the lender to ditch its green targets and step up support for fossil fuel infrastructure in the developing world.
With the World Bank’s key climate policy framework set to expire in June, closed-door negotiations between shareholders and the bank’s management over its successor have stalled, sources familiar with the discussions told Climate Home News.
This throws into doubt the future direction of the world’s largest provider of international climate funding to developing countries. Rajneesh Bhuee, just transition lead at campaigning group Recourse, said that scrapping the bank’s climate targets and markers would be “worrying”.
First introduced in 2021, the Climate Change Action Plan (CCAP) has driven an expansion in the World Bank’s funding for emission-cutting projects and support for vulnerable communities dealing with the growing impacts of climate change.
The plan embedded climate considerations across the bank’s lending practices and committed it to directing a defined share of its annual budget – now 45% – to projects with climate benefits.
Since the plan was introduced, the World Bank’s climate funding nearly doubled from $21 billion in 2021 to $39 billion in 2025.
Bessent attack on climate
That trajectory is now under threat. Since Donald Trump’s return to the White House, the US – the bank’s largest shareholder – has waged an aggressive campaign against its climate commitments.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Wednesday that the World Bank should abandon its “distortionary” climate finance target, claiming without evidence that it “undermines efforts to reduce poverty and spur economic growth”.
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“We welcome the coming expiration of the Climate Change Action Plan, and upon its long-overdue expiration, expect the bank to immediately shift its myopic focus on climate,” he added in the statement issued during the World Bank’s Spring Meeting in Washington DC this week.
Earlier in the week, Bessent pushed back against the scientific consensus that human activities, and the burning of fossil fuels in particular, are the dominant drivers of global warming.
Progress called into question
With negotiations heading for a crunch, battle lines are hardening. Sources familiar with discussions told Climate Home News that European countries, backed by some Latin American nations and small island states, are holding firm in their push to see a version of the climate plan extended.
But nations reliant on the production of fossil fuels, like Russia and the Gulf States, have sided with the US, they said. The decision will ultimately be taken by the bank’s management, led by Biden appointee Ajay Banga, but with powerful advice from the governments that make up the bank’s shareholders.
Jon Sward, environment project manager at the Bretton Woods Project, said that any watering down of the World Bank’s climate agenda would be damaging.
“Over the past decade until last year, the scope and depth of the bank’s climate work, though still imperfect, had been expanding. That feeling of progress is being called into question,” he told Climate Home News.
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Multilateral development banks (MDBs) led by the World Bank have been handed an increasingly central role in providing funding for climate action to developing nations, as many rich governments channel a large share of their climate finance through the MDBs.
MDBs accounted for over 40% of public international climate finance in 2022, the latest year for which data is available. Growing support from MDBs and shrinking overseas aid budgets in developed countries suggest their role is likely to have grown even bigger since then.
‘Imperfect’ plan better than no plan
The World Bank’s climate approach has faced repeated criticism. Activists accused the lender of relying heavily on loans and adding to the debt piles of vulnerable countries, and of inflating its climate finance numbers by overstating the real climate benefit of its projects.
But Recourse’s Bhuee, said that, despite its flaws, a weak climate action plan is still better than no climate action plan. “Imperfect as the current plan is, it provides a basis for accountability,” she added.
While experts do not expect an immediate drop in climate funding, the removal of formal targets could weaken internal incentives to prioritise climate projects and reduce transparency over how funds are allocated.
In the short term, it would give the US administration a big symbolic win in its wide-ranging quest to hollow out international financing for climate action and boost support for planet-warming fossil fuels.
Gas compromise
“The US strategy is to run out the clock,” an expert with knowledge of the discussions told Climate Home News. “It is using the June deadline to either get rid of the plan altogether or as leverage to extract concessions on a weakened climate plan in exchange for something else like funding upstream gas”.
The World Bank committed to stopping support for gas extraction projects in 2019, but that ban has been reconsidered since Trump’s return to office. Bessent said on Wednesday that the World Bank should support an “all-of-the-above” approach to energy, including gas, oil and coal.
“The US has outsized importance over the World Bank’s policy,” the expert said, “but it is incumbent on the European shareholders to show some spine here”.
The post US pressure puts World Bank’s climate plan at risk appeared first on Climate Home News.
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