As part of Our Planet Now, the BBC’s ongoing commitment to programming which explicitly explores the environment and the challenges facing the natural world, Life at 50°C is a four-part series on BBC World News presenting the reality of climate change through stories of people around the world, exploring how communities living in cities and rural areas have had to adapt their lives to cope with extreme heat.
Life at 50 degrees: Nigeria Burning is available to watch on the BBC News YouTube channel.
Gas flares
In Nigeria, oil provides 65% of the government’s revenue. It’s an industry that enriches the Nigerian elite, whilst 98 million still live in poverty. And, in the oil-producing region of the Niger Delta, poverty isn’t the only issue; harmful emissions from producing oil also present acute health risks.
Life at 50 degrees: Nigeria Burning features Joy, who works in the tapioca business with her children in Agbarha. They are forced to work in dangerous conditions to raise money for the funeral of her late mother.
The family use the heat of the illegal gas flare to dry the cassava roots to make tapioca. At the flow station, oil comes off from the well-head and the methane is burnt off. The temperature around the perimeter of the flare is 90C degrees. Here, Joy and her family can dry tapioca in hours. Away from the flare, it would take days.
“The reason I have short hair is because if I grow my hair long, it could burn my head if the flare shifts direction and explodes. It’s bad for our health but we say to hell with the consequences. We need to support our families. After four days’ work, me and my five children, make a profit of 2,000 naira ($5; £3.50),” Joy explained.
When oil is extracted from the ground, natural gas is released. To get rid of the methane gas, oil workers burn it, creating a hazardous flare. These flares are a major source of greenhouse gases, and although they’re illegal in Nigeria, two million Nigerians live within 2.5 miles of a gas flare.
“Most people aren’t well enough informed to be able to explain why the climate is changing rapidly. But we’re suspicious of the non-stop flares, which create conditions for heatwaves. In my view, the government should lead efforts to end gas flaring in the oil industry and hopefully that will significantly reduce the heatwave and associated health hazards.”
The Nigerian government has promised to phase out illegal flaring by 2030.
Well-digging
Kilankwa in Central Nigeria was once a fertile land with forests and orchards but the droughts in the region is affecting well diggers’ ability to find water. With less and less rain in Kilankwa, much of the area is turning to desert, forcing well diggers to find other sources of income.
Farouk has been digging wells for over 20 years and has seen the change in climate.
“I started digging wells as a boy, like this, and it’s been over 20 years now. The weather now changes every year. For instance, March was very hot, the sun was high.”
And it’s hotter in the well than it is at ground level.
“The deeper it goes, the hotter it gets,” says Farouk. “The heat is directly proportional to the depth of the well. The day we started [digging the well], we got to 5ft. The following day, it was 7ft. The fourth day, still without finding water, 14ft. The fifth day, 19ft. It’s suffocating, you can’t stay down there,” said Farouk.
“I also cut trees” says Haruna, a fellow well-digger. “Cutting this tree is stressful, but digging the well is even more stressful because when you’re cutting down trees, you get a breeze. It’s not ideal to cut down trees. They support the ecosystem. But there’s no other way of getting money, so we have to do this.”
