With global temperatures rising, Nigeria faces a cooling crisis

In Lagos, Nigeria's largest city, temperatures have exceeded 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 degree Celcius) multiple times this year -- a level that, combined with the region's pervasive humidity, strains the human body's ability to cope. Without relief, even healthy individuals face potentially dangerous consequences.

For residents like Lateefat Rasaq, a civil servant living in Lagos with her husband and four children, the impact is frightening. "When it gets that hot, I often feel dizzy and faint," she said. "I'm not just worried about myself -- I fear for my children's safety."

Rasaq and her family, like many people in Nigeria, cannot afford an air-conditioner. Instead, the Rasaqs rely on a fan to cool their apartment. However, Nigeria's near-daily blackouts frequently leave them without even this basic cooling method.

As average global temperatures rise because of climate change, sub-Saharan African nations, including Nigeria, are experiencing even faster rates of warming.

A study published in the journal Nature Sustainability identifies Nigeria as one of five countries expected to see the highest surge in heat exposure if temperatures rise by 2 degrees Celsius.

And as temperatures surge, so does Nigeria's population: Today, 1 in 7 Africans lives in Nigeria. By 2050, the United Nation projects that Nigeria -- about twice the size of California -- is expected to overtake the United States as the world's third most populous country.

Nigeria's rising temperatures and growing population are, in turn, spurring increased demand for cooling solutions.

But access to air-conditioning and even fans is limited because of both cost and Nigeria's dire energy shortage -- only about 60 per cent of Nigerians have access to electricity, and many face unreliable power supply and live in housing that offers little protection from extreme heat.

That leaves nearly 115 million Nigerians, more than half of the country, without adequate access to cooling, according to Sustainable Energy for All, a nonprofit organization launched by the United Nations.

Nigeria faces a dual challenge. It must improve access to air-conditioning while also developing a more efficient air-conditioner market and expanding energy access.

This situation creates a vicious cycle: Global warming increases demand for air-conditioning, which often relies on fossil fuels and polluting refrigerants, further heating the planet and intensifying the need for cooling.

This is why passive cooling solutions are critical: Better-ventilated buildings, green spaces and reflective roofs can cool environments without increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Such solutions, however, have been hard to fulfill on a large scale in Nigeria, where urban growth is often unplanned.

The heat can be so oppressive that passive solutions alone are not enough. "Air-conditioners are a necessity -- no longer a luxury," said Okon Ekpenyong, a former director with the Energy Commission of Nigeria.

A 2020 study by the appliance efficiency nonprofit CLASP estimated that about 20 per cent of Nigerians have access to air-conditioning in their homes, compared with about 90 per cent of households in the United States in the same year, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

Despite Nigeria's relatively low penetration of air-conditioners, the country has Africa's largest air-conditioner market.

Annual sales are 1 million units, according to an estimate by the United Nations Environment Programme, and that number does not include secondhand air-conditioners discarded from homes in Europe and China, where they no longer meet performance standards.

Such units often consume two to three times more electricity than new models and put added stress on Nigeria's overburdened electricity grids. Many also contain R22 refrigerants, which are ozone-depleting and trap heat at levels thousands of times worse than CO2.

To broaden access to air-conditioners, Nigeria must "put in place policy and regulations towards establishing minimum energy performance standards," Ekpenyong said. "We shouldn't be a dumping ground for inefficient appliances that are not environmentally friendly."

That is why Ekpenyong, until his recent retirement, developed a national cooling plan to strengthen the efficiency standards for air-conditioners sold in Nigeria and ban imports of secondhand units.

This plan, Ekpenyong said, would encourage air-conditioning companies that already assemble their products in Nigeria to scale up production, in turn lessening the cost of such products. Without minimum energy standards and a ban on the importation of used appliances "the cost of more efficient products can be undercut by those using outdated and polluting technologies," said Brian Holuj, who leads a United Nations team supporting Nigeria's national cooling plan.

Setting standards is one piece of the puzzle, but the more formidable challenge is providing the power necessary to run the millions of fans, air-conditioners and refrigerators needed to keep Nigerians and their food cool. In a recent televised address, Nigeria's minister of power said the country supplied around 5 gigawatts of grid-powered electricity -- about the same amount as New York City, according to the state's independent grid operator, but for a population 25 times its size. With little grid power, many Nigerians are forced to rely on expensive, heavily polluting diesel and petrol generators.

To close the nation's energy gap, Nigeria must accomplish several things, said Damilola Ogunbiyi, the CEO of Sustainable Energy for All: expand power infrastructure, tap into abundant renewable resources like solar, hydropower and wind, and enact policy and regulatory reforms to attract private investment and streamline approvals that have hampered energy development.

Another challenge concerns refrigeration, particularly on farms. A 2023 analysis from the book "Advances in Food Security and Sustainability" found that roughly 40% of fresh produce in Nigeria is wasted because of a lack of adequate cooling for farm produce.

"Small farmers feed Nigeria, but many of these farms aren't on the grid and don't have access to electricity," said Adekoyejo Kuye, a local entrepreneur. That is why Kuye started KAMIM Technologies, a company that provides solar-powered agricultural products, including cold storage units. Kuye estimated that Nigerian farmers using KAMIM Technologies cold storage facilities have been able to reduce wastage by 90%.

Among them is Augustine Owezie, a farmer in Lagos State who grows peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers and cassava, among other vegetables. Three months ago, a KAMIM Technologies cold storage facility was installed near his 5-acre farm, allowing him to expand his production.

"Before the arrival of cold storage, production was drastically lower because after the market, the remaining produce would go bad," Owezie said. "We were wasting money," he added.

Today, the cold storage unit "is propelling farmers towards production and towards wealth," he said.