Fitch: Nigeria, Others to Face Mass Poverty, Displacements as Climate Change Intensifies

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

The negative effect of climate change will massively impact Nigeria and other Sub-Saharan African countries before the global pledge to end carbon emissions by 2050 and Nigeria’s commitment to join in 2060, a Fitch Solution Industry Risk and Country Research, has stated.

Nigeria and other African countries remain the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, even though they contribute less than 3 per cent to the global emissions footprint.

Nigeria faces a wide range of aftermath results, including increased floods, and some drought, which is expected to decrease food production as well as inundation of its coastal zones and deltas, spread of waterborne diseases and risk of malaria, and changes in natural ecosystems as well as loss of biodiversity.

Total available water in the large basins on the continent has decreased by 40–60 per cent and many climate models project declining mean precipitation in the already-dry regions.

Last year, at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, President Muhammadu Buhar pledged that Nigeria would cut its emissions to net zero by 2060 and urged developed countries to make available the $100 billion yearly commitment to the continent.

But in its latest report, Fitch stated that the rising global temperatures have caused more frequent and extreme weather events in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

Referencing the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, it stated that by 2030, about 250 million people may experience high water stress in Africa, with up to 700 million people displaced as a result.

“We expect that more mass internal displacements and cross-border migrations in SSA will exacerbate ethnic tensions and increase competition for already scarce resources, encouraging governments to adopt more restrictive immigration policies.

“We also expect that there will be an increase in poverty and economic inequality as a result of climate change, creating fertile ground for social unrest.

“Between 2022-2031, we expect that the number of climate-induced internal displacements in the continent will increase as temperature continues to rise,” the agency said in its monthly outlook presentation.

It explained that rising resource competition through cross-border migration could also encourage more restrictive immigration policies in the long term, stating that ethnic tensions exacerbated by climate change will be used by those using ethnic nationalist politics or outright secessionism.

“We expect that Hausa-Fulani people in northern Nigeria, who face rising climate risk, will increasingly migrate southwards to more Igbo- and Yoruba-dominated states, fuelling southern separatist movements,” it projected.

The report stated that the Sahel of which North-eastern Nigeria is part, will be particularly vulnerable to intensified resource conflict as a result of higher temperatures, causing drier conditions in the semi and arid regions.

“We expect that land and water disputes will intensify and could spread, as Sahelian communities fleeing violence migrate to other areas, increasing intercommunal crisis and regional insecurity.  

“We expect that there will be increase in poverty and economic inequality as a result of climate change, creating fertile ground for social unrest.

“Given budgetary constraints, security issues and inadequate access to irrigation systems, the continent’s agricultural sector lacks resilience to extreme weather events,” Fitch added.

It therefore gave Sub-Saharan Africa as a whole a score of 50.5 out of 100 (lower scores imply higher risks) in its proprietary Long-Term Political Risk Index (LTPRI), stressing that the score is largely weighed down by the score of 39.0 in the ‘characteristics of society’ component of its LTPRI.

According to the report, the harsher climate conditions will likely lead to increased unemployment and income loss among the rural population and will raise food insecurity in both rural and urban areas as crops are damaged, causing an uptick in food prices.

 While more climate disasters could increase the amount of humanitarian food aid coming in to Nigeria and Sub-Saharan areas, it noted that this could also trigger more clashes between security forces and armed groups, particularly in West and East Africa, where there have been multiple instances of insurgents and armed bandits stealing food supplies to sustain themselves.

In other African countries, it stated that Ethiopia for instance, has been constructing the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) project on the Blue Nile since 2011,a development that has raised tensions with Egypt and Sudan over fears the dam would disrupt the water supply to the two downstream countries.

In August 2022, Fitch noted that Ethiopia completed the third-stage filling of the dam, despite the disapproval of Egyptian and Sudanese officials.