As the global movement to reduce carbon emissions and enhance adaptation and resilience (A&R) to climate change intensifies, there is a critical need for balanced investment in both areas.
Mitigation efforts, aimed at reducing carbon emissions, see roughly 90% of climate spending today, while A&R, which focuses on reducing the vulnerability of communities and ecosystems to climate impacts such as rising sea levels and extreme weather events, is greatly under-invested.
One key reason for this is the challenge in measuring the impact of A&R investments. Unlike mitigation, where success can be quantified by the reduction in greenhouse gases, A&R lacks a unified metric or a way of measuring a disaster that didn’t happen.
This is particularly problematic for countries like Nigeria, where climate vulnerabilities are diverse and region-specific, and is a key barrier to attracting private-sector investment, crucial for implementing effective A&R strategies.
To address this challenge, a proposed framework—the Framework for Resilience and Adaptation Investment Measurement and Evaluation (FRAIME)—has been developed which aims to standardise the measurement of A&R impacts.
This should enable public and private investors alike to identify high-impact projects, align these projects with national adaptation plans, and ultimately serve as a global benchmark for A&R efforts.
The goal is to unlock and attract the necessary capital to assist many lower- and middle-income countries (LMICs) like Nigeria adapt to the escalating effects of climate change.
The need for adaptation and resilience in Nigeria
As of 2023, only a third of LMICs had submitted comprehensive National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and Nigeria is no exception.
Although adaptation finance has increased in recent years, it still falls short of what is required to meet the growing needs – a gap that by 2030 is estimated to be around $212 billion annually for A&R investments for LMICs—a figure that dwarfs current funding levels.
Nigeria’s high vulnerability to climate change and significant risks faced from extreme weather events, changing rainfall patterns, and rising temperatures, all of which threaten its agriculture, infrastructure, and overall economic stability, requires the urgent full integration of A&R into its national climate strategy, something, which largely due to the same measurement challenges being faced globally, has yet to take place.
The complexity of measuring the impact of A&R initiatives has contributed to the lag in investment but a further contributing factor is the variable effectiveness of such projects due to factors such as the degree of warming, regional vulnerabilities, government policies, public behaviour and others.
This is true in Nigeria where climate vulnerability varies greatly by region. For instance, a project that strengthens coastal defences in Lagos might be highly effective, but the same type of project would have little relevance in the drought-prone northern regions. This geographic specificity, combined with the uncertainty of future climate scenarios, makes it difficult to assess and compare the effectiveness of A&R projects across different contexts.
Moreover, existing efforts to standardise A&R metrics, such as those from the Global Goal on Adaptation and the Climate Bonds Initiative, are still in their early stages and have not yet been widely adopted.
A case in point is Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city and economic heart, where the climate conversation is urgent given its coastal low-lying topology, pre-existing storm conditions, ill-prepared infrastructure, and dense population.
The Lagos Climate AI model that we developed identified a staggering $39Bn cost of inaction, 27X the state’s current entire annual budget, due to the impact of rising sea levels, extreme rainfall, and extreme temperatures. Up to 3 million Lagosians could be underwater by then.
We have worked with the Lagos State Government to produce the detailed, integrated, and comprehensive Lagos Climate Adaptation and Resilience Plan (LCARP) based on those deep climate analytics.
We took an analytical approach to pinpoint risks across the city, such as specific infrastructure inundated by expected sea level rise and identified $8Bn of A&R investment interventions to mitigate the staggering cost of inaction.
This work, presented at COP29, will help put the city on the pathway to becoming Africa’s model city for climate resilience.
Implementing the FRAIME framework in Nigeria
The FRAIME proposes a comprehensive approach to measuring A&R impacts, which could be particularly beneficial for Nigeria. It includes three core components:
- Policy metrics: These metrics help shape government decisions by quantifying the cost of inaction and the potential value at risk. For Nigeria, this could involve detailed assessments of how climate change will impact key sectors like agriculture, health, and infrastructure.
- Investment life cycle metrics: These metrics track the progress of A&R investments over time. In Nigeria, this could mean monitoring the implementation of projects such as irrigation systems in drought-prone areas or flood defences in coastal regions.
- Impact metrics: These metrics evaluate the actual outcomes of A&R investments, such as reduced crop losses due to improved irrigation or fewer casualties from flooding. By applying these metrics, Nigeria could better demonstrate the effectiveness of its A&R strategies and attract more investment.
Nigeria’s case for action
Nigeria’s exposure to climate change necessitates an urgent and coordinated response. Adopting a standardised framework like FRAIME could play a critical role in guiding critical A&R investments such as those identified in LCARP, and ensuring that they deliver measurable benefits.
Moreover, this framework can help Nigeria align its national adaptation efforts with global standards.
By focusing on the country’s unique vulnerabilities and mobilising the necessary capital, Nigeria can build resilience against climate impacts and secure its future in an increasingly warming world.
