DeBriefed 5 April 2024: Southern Africa’s drought ‘disaster’; Top electric car sales slump; Is Nigeria coping with extreme heat?

Solomon Elusoji

Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.

§ This week

Drought in southern Africa

NATIONAL DISASTERS: An ongoing extreme drought in southern Africa is threatening millions of people with hunger, Sky News reported. According to Reuters, Zimbabwe has declared the drought a national disaster. The drought has also reached crisis levels in neighbouring Zambia and Malawi, with both countries declaring national disasters, the Associated Press said. Botswana, Angola, Mozambique and Madagascar are also affected, it added.

EL-NIÑO: Dry weather conditions linked to the El Niño weather pattern have worsened the drought, which emerged in its latest phase in mid-2023, Deutsche Welle reported. El Niño reached a peak in December, according to the World Meteorological Organization, but is still expected to result in above-normal temperatures until May, the outlet added. Scientists told Sky News that El Niño could be “amplifying the existing impacts of climate change”.

CALL FOR AID: Zimbabwe president Emmerson Mnangagwa said the country needs more than $2bn in aid to feed the millions of people facing hunger, the Associated Press reported. It added that the United Nations’ World Food Programme has already rolled out a food assistance programme targeting 2.7 million people.

Electric car sales slump

POOR QUARTER: The world’s top sellers of electric vehicles (EV), Elon Musk’s Tesla and Chinese rival BYD, reported sharp falls in sales in the first financial quarter of this year, adding to “concerns over the slowing shifts towards EVs”, the Financial Times reported. It added that both carmakers have repeatedly cut prices since the start of the year in a bid to stimulate demand.

DIRE FUTURE?: Tesla’s shares fell following the news, extending their 2024 slide to 33%, the second-worst showing in the S&P 500 stock market index, Bloomberg reported. The dip in sales comes amid a “sharp deterioration in growth” for US EVs, the New York Times said. However, Musk is mulling over the possibility of building a £3bn Tesla EV factory in India, the Daily Telegraph reported.

ELECTRIC SUBSIDIES: Only seven out of 500,000 EV charging stations have been built under a $7.5bn US government subsidy programme launched in 2021 and scheduled for completion by 2030, the Independent reported. The Federal Highway Administration told the Independent that “the slow pace has been deliberate, to avoid costly mistakes while navigating a brand-new law and building a network from scratch”. 

§ Around the world

  • SEARING HEAT: India’s national weather service has forecast “hotter-than-usual” temperatures for April to June, raising the risk of water shortages and crop damages, Bloomberg reported.
  • UNUSUAL FIRES: Venezuela is battling a record number of wildfires – with satellites detecting more than 30,200 fires between January and March – as a climate change-driven drought consumes the Amazon rainforest region, according to Reuters.
  • CLIMATE JUSTICE: Shell began its appeal against a ruling at The Hague that compelled it to slash its emissions by 45% by 2030, relative to 2019, the Financial Times reported. A judgement is expected in the second half of this year, the paper added.
  • AID BY FOSSIL: White House officials have suggested that they are open to ending president Joe Biden’s pause on approvals of new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals in order to get a Ukraine aid package through Congress, Reuters reported. A White House spokesperson denied the story.
  • WARNING BELLS: According to a new study reported by the Guardian, a boom in mining projects for minerals needed in renewable energy technologies is now threatening up to a third of apes in Africa.
  • STANDING TALL: A new analysis found that the number of trees lost in Brazil and Colombia was down “dramatically” in 2023 – falling by 39% – largely due to changes in political leadership in these nations, according to BBC News.

§ 57

The number of fossil fuel and cement producers responsible for 80% of the world’s CO2 emissions from 2016-2022, according to the Carbon Majors project by non-profit thinktank InfluenceMap.

§ Latest climate research

  • A study in npj Climate Action evaluated the perceptions of climate change among a selection of academics at a local university in Cameroon and suggested a framework to support educators as they help to foster critical thinking.
  • The optimal location for North American birds has shifted northward by an average rate of 1.5km each year in response to climate change, a new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found, representing a total distance moved of 82.5km over the past 55 years.
  • A new study in Climate and Development investigated the “policy blind spots” around the contribution of women to rangeland cultivation in Tunisia and the effects of climate change on their livelihoods.

(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)

§ Captured

Image (note)

The UN climate change body, the UNFCCC, is largely funded by industrialised nations, such as the US, China, Japan, UK and France. However, these nations have not yet paid anything towards the UNFCCC’s core budget for this year, according to Carbon Brief analysis of UN data. This shortfall could be impacting the body’s functioning. For example, the UNFCCC recently cancelled this year’s Regional Climate Weeks, which are a “vital platform to express the concerns of people and communities most affected by climate change,” according to a comment piece by WaterAid’s Dulce Marrumbe published on Climate Home News. “The suspension of the Regional Climate Weeks is hugely disappointing news,” Marrumbe said.

§ Spotlight

How is Nigeria coping with extreme heat fuelled by climate change?

This week, Carbon Brief zooms in on how Nigerians are responding to the extreme heat affecting west Africa.

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 comprehensive record-keeping of heat and its impacts lacking in Nigeria, Carbon Brief spoke to doctors, farmers and meteorologists about how this episode of extreme weather is affecting the country.

Health impacts

The impact of the heat is “catastrophic”, Dr Ugo Uguwanyi, a doctor in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city, told 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”.

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.

NiMet’s director of Weather Forecast Services, Vincent Weli, had 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.”

However, no such directive has yet been issued by state governments.

Agricultural and workforce impacts

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.

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.

Wasiu Adeniyi Ibrahim, a meteorologist from NiMet, told Carbon Brief:

“Heatwaves can reduce agricultural productivity by causing heat stress to crops and livestock.”

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, told Carbon Brief that its members expect the heatwave to affect productivity yield this year. He said:

“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.”

§ Watch, read, listen

STRATEGIC DOMINANCE: Eric Olander and Cobus van Staden of the China-Global South Podcast interviewed automotive analyst Lei Xing on Chinese EV brands’ plans to dominate global-south car markets.

CLIMATE FUTURES: The New York Times investigated whether Guyana’s oil is a “blessing or a curse”.

CARBON POLITICS: In a new episode of Political Heat, environmental campaigner Amy Mount spoke to Prof Rebecca Willis about democracy and the challenge of responding to climate change.

§ Coming up

§ Pick of the jobs

DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to [email protected].
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