Note: The views expressed here are the author’s own and do not reflect the views of Energy Impact Partners.
Here comes Nigeria
Let me be the first to say I’m not a Nigeria expert, but one thing is clear: Nigeria is on the rise. It’s the largest economy in Africa. It has the largest population in Africa by nearly a factor of two. By 2050, it will be the third most populous country in the world. And its tech industry has burst onto the scene in recent years.
But oops, it’s also a petrostate?
From a climate perspective, this is going to be tricky. Africa’s rising star and center of innovation is also a card-carrying member of OPEC. And who can blame them? Nigeria is cash-poor (146th in GDP per capita) and oil-rich (12th in proven reserves, 15th in production). Oil is obviously Nigeria’s ticket to the middle class.
So naturally, it’s interesting to think about Nigeria’s path to decarbonization and climate adaptation. There are the usual reasons to think about these things, but there are also unique economic reasons. In particular, Nigeria could give you a lot of bang for your buck. There are plentiful near-term decarbonization and adaptation opportunities, large and growing markets, and a highly market-based economy. Generalist VCs have discovered Nigeria, but climate tech VCs are behind.
So, where are the opportunities? At a high level, it seems that you might do some things differently than you would in the US or Europe.
For example, you might pursue software or business model innovations that debuted elsewhere – X, but tailored to the Nigerian market. Pay-as-you-go electricity, new financing models for solar, energy efficiency upgrades for buildings, and so on. On average, you’d probably want to go to market at a lower price point. While the upper class in Lagos is as rich as they come, the average Nigerian is 17 years old and makes $2,100 per year. The Tesla secret master plan may not have legs here.
There may also be some unique opportunities in hardware. One could be energy reliability. A quarter of Nigerian businesses cite electricity reliability as the main obstacle to their business, and earlier this month there was a 10-hour nationwide blackout. While utilities grapple with this,1 there may be room for innovations like mircogrids, battery backup systems, and distributed solar. These would have dual benefits as tools for climate adaptation.
Another opportunity is in infrastructure buildout. For example, the cold chain is developing, with startups like Figorr leading the charge. Another is recycling in the absence of Western-style government programs — with companies like WasteBazaar providing on-demand services and Kubik turning plastic waste into construction materials.
And last but not least, there’s an opportunity to decarbonize the production of oil and gas. We have to admit that if things go well for Nigeria, it will still be a petrostate. But it can be a well-run petrostate that doesn’t spew methane into the atmosphere.
To be clear, there are serious headwinds. While Nigeria’s government is relatively stable, the country suffers from terrorist activity, corruption, and infrastructure that leaves a lot to be desired. Its country risk premium is about 8%, comparable to Zimbabwe or Iraq. Again, I’m no Nigeria expert, but these are significant barriers to investment.
So on balance, Nigeria seems to be a place full of contradictions: boundless human potential, an economy built on oil, a burgeoning tech ecosystem, and a challenging relationship with government. It’s worth watching how things unfold.
Here are a few related pieces I found interesting:
How’s hurricane season going?
Hurricanes are bad but unavoidable, so every year a bunch of organizations make predictions about the upcoming season. Today, we’ll evaluate them. To take one example, here’s Florida’s Climate Adaptation Center (CAC) back in April predicting 14 named storms, seven hurricanes, and 2-3 major hurricanes during the 2023 season:
These two major components, ocean temperatures and La Niña/El Niño, are aligned in a less powerful way than last season. Consequently, the CAC is forecasting a normal to slightly above normal season, similar to last year — assuming the dust clouds entering the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico this year are normal. In other words, a normal dust pattern blowing into the Atlantic from the Sahara would mean hurricanes will form in July and August unlike last year, but a developing El Niño especially could help tamp down formation during the peak season. The early season may pose a higher threat than normal. Storms form in the Caribbean early in hurricane seasons and with the excessive Gulf water temperatures and weak wind shear early in the season, we have to be extra careful.
The CAC is forecasting 14 named storms for the 2023 season. We expect at least 7 to reach hurricane strength and 2-3 to become Major Hurricanes. We also expect several of these storms to exhibit rapid intensification and our focus needs to be high during the June through August period when warm SST’s and neutral conditions in the Pacific will be most favorable for storm development.
How’d that prediction fare? So far, it’s looking close but a little low. As of this writing, we’ve had 18 named storms, six hurricanes, and three major hurricanes. Hurricane season in the Atlantic typically peaks in September and trails off through November, so the final tally should be a bit higher.
What about other organizations? Currently a handful of universities, government agencies, and The Weather Channel throw their hat in the ring. Wisdom of the crowds, right?
Eh, sort of. We’re decidedly just okay at this. The predictions are a bit scattered and sometimes everybody whiffs. And some of these predictions even include second, third, and fourth attempts by a group, some all the way into August. If you look at year-over-year storm counts, it’s clear that there’s some randomness to this, but still, it seems possible to get better at predicting storms. A few startups like WindBorne Systems and Salient Predictions are working on weather forecasting at various scales, and government data sources are continuing to improve. So there’s hope. But in the meantime, maybe try your hand instead? There’s still time to join a fantasy hurricane league this year.
Superforecasters
Speaking of forecasts: over the past decade or so, superforecasters have come into the mainstream. First surfaced by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency in a 2011 competition, superforecasters have risen to prominence by making geopolitical predictions that have turned out to be much more accurate than those of the experts — even when only the experts had access to classified intelligence. In the years since, there’s been some interest in understanding who they are, how they operate, whether or not they think the world is going to end, and so on. Superforecasters seem to excel where Excel models don’t… excel.
So it’s worth asking: what do superforecasters have to say about climate? Climate change is a complex phenomenon involving everything from atmospheric physics to social psychology. Relatedly, it’s an area where experts make lots of sweeping predictions that turn out to be wrong.
Last year, the superforecasting organization Good Judgment released a report, “Superforecasting Long-Term Risk and Climate Change.” Here’s how it worked:
To generate the most accurate forecasts available, Good Judgment works with some 180 Superforecasters from around the world whose forecasting accuracy placed them in the top 1-2% of the more than 100,000 forecasters who took part in the US Government research project or on the public forecasting platform Good Judgment Open.
These Superforecasters are a diverse group, with professions ranging from finance to intelligence, management to medicine, and psychology to archaeology. Most have one or more graduate degrees, and a third have doctorates. A third of Superforecasters live outside of the United States and most speak two or more languages.
Good Judgment’s Superforecasters analyzed 22 questions related to the long-term risk of climate change. … These questions were examined first through a narrower set of objectively falsifiable forecast metrics, followed by a wider discussion of the overarching questions and alternative scenarios.
Halfway through the project, ten subject matter experts examined the initial forecasts and provided the Superforecasters with feedback and additional sources, after which the Superforecasters had the opportunity to consider and react to the expert feedback. …
Good Judgment’s team of Superforecasters for this project included a smaller “Red Team” – Superforecasters who did not themselves forecast, but rather who critiqued the teams’ thinking and suggested alternative arguments for consideration. Red Team members highlight new details or new arguments that, in their view, forecasters had not fully considered. This results in forecasts that are better informed by multiple data sets and perspectives.
Let’s dive in. What did they think about emissions in 2050?
Superforecasters think we’ll still emit many gigatons of CO₂ in 2050.2 Almost nobody thinks we’ll cut emissions below 10 gigatons. Here are a few quotes from the superforecasters themselves:
“Compared to year 2000, in 2019, according to OWiD, Europe and the US were down about 12%, while India and China were up about 170% and 205%, respectively. Asia on the whole is also up about 125%.”
“With China planning to peak CO₂ emission in 2030, and India and other countries with large populations certainly following that path, I’d say even under the best circumstances, spending some time in >40 billion territory (answer option E) in the next 10 years is a virtual certainty.”
“China’s active and dramatic cooperation would be much needed to get to C. Is that a serious possibility? I would need to see them ceasing to add capacity before I could even entertain that, and they are currently doing the opposite.”
“Economic constraints, imposed by a period of global slowdown, or tensions caused by inequality, could use up the political capital needed to sustain and intensify climate policy.”
“Energy projections have generally underestimated clean energy cost declines (as well as actual deployment). Decarbonization is becoming cheaper than previously expected, which also means that government pledges have become much easier to meet.”
Summarizing, while there’s been good progress on technology and policy in developed nations, there’s a massive China question at the heart of the matter.
What about heat-related deaths?
Overall, a moderate increase with high uncertainty. A few thoughts from the superforecasters:
“Consistently hot weather is probably less dangerous than a sudden hot spell in an area that’s not used to it. So, if climate change causes an area to gradually get hotter over a few decades, with no sudden spikes, humans adapt well. Climate change is much more dangerous if it leads to more sudden spikes of heat in areas that don’t expect them. Needless to say, less affluent areas likely will suffer more.”
“It strikes me that global population increase through 2050 and a continuing shift to urbanization are all but guaranteed to offset any improvements in functionalities, so I would conclude that climate impacts will not be decreasing. All of this leads me to thinking that the key to annual heat-related deaths will come down to effective urban adaptations and the increasing implementation of heat mitigation strategies. Moving entire populations out of regions or subcontinents simply is not a viable solution and a failure to adapt is not really an option.”
“Status quo per capita is 372,000. However, migration to cities and the urban heat island effect will increase this. Adaptation is possible in this time period. For instance, after the 2003 EU heatwave, simple measures were taken that reduced future mortality. Even though 2022 was hotter than 2003, there were a lot fewer deaths. However, adaptation is unlikely to happen in [lower-income countries] in this time frame due to governance issues.”
“A decline in mortality risk per a unit of temperature is to be expected as societies become richer and some adaptation to climate change begins to take place.”
This one tends to link to sudden temperature spikes and urban areas. I don’t love the phrasing of this question because of the large effect of one-off spikes in extreme years,3 but nonetheless, there you have it.4
What about human extinction?
Phew. Almost nobody thinks this is very likely. Some more color:
Forecasts on this question ranged primarily between 0 and 1%, with just one Superforecaster entering a higher forecast of 10%. The median decimal forecast for those forecasting between 0-1% is 0.00055%. The aggregate forecast for 2300 is 3%. Of 26 Superforecasters active on this question, 21 made forecasts between 0-1% and median decimal forecast for those is 0.05%. Of the five Superforecasters who forecast above 1%, four gave forecasts between 2-5% and one gave a forecast of 55%.
“Maybe I’m too optimistic, but I do see the human race addressing climate change via (a) transition to clean energy, (b) innovation, and possibly (c) geo-engineering and/or carbon capture. We aren’t addressing it as fast as we should, but we will get there, suffering more than necessary on the way. Complete extinction, as in every last human is dead, is exceedingly unlikely. Even in the most dire circumstances, I envision 50-100,000 people surviving via extraordinary measures for at least a considerable period of time.”
“I can easily see that many of the disasters described by my colleagues could lead to the collapse of civilization. But not to total human extinction. By 2100 we will likely be a multiplanet species.”
“I assume climate will be a necessary condition in a relatively large share of extinction scenarios (5-30%). I tend to agree with William MacAskill that most of the existential risk comes from conflict (he says 90%). Climate change is a threat multiplier, so we’d expect a non-negligible role in conflict.”
“Though this forecast is very low, I believe climate change is one of the greatest challenges, or the greatest, of the next 80 years, and if not solved, it will radically decrease our quality of life.”
If you’re into this stuff as much as I am, I’d encourage you to check out the rest of the report. It also covers crop yields, food prices, the Amazon, and deaths related to floods, storms, and drought.
Zooming out, we in the decarbonization community spend a lot of time thinking about how to drive this or that source of emissions to zero. We often use 2050 as our deadline, with the unstated assumption that we have to meet 2050 goals or else things get really bad. We’re a little guilty of catastrophizing, which is understandable – we’re up against some serious shit! And existential threats are good motivators! But the world isn’t so black and white. If we don’t zero out every last source of emissions by 2050, sure, the planet will be hotter and less predictable, but it won’t obviously be an unlivable hellscape.
Superforecasters are also implicitly making the case for climate adaptation technology.5 The picture they’ve painted is one where 2050 emissions aren’t close to zero, but where heat-related deaths are only slightly higher and the species is plainly going to survive. It’s not the prettiest picture! There’s still tail risk! But overall, we tend to figure things out. I agree that that future seems most likely.
Elsewhere:
Thanks for reading!
Please share your thoughts and let me know where I mess up. You can find me on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Side note: South Africa is beating its climate goals… because they can’t keep the lights on. Don’t be like South Africa.
Side note: Bold to assume that Our World in Data will still be around in 2050. I like it.
See The Ministry for the Future.
It’s worth noting that the Good Judgment study also looked at a hypothetical 7 ºC scenario in 2100 and found that 58% of superforecasters thought that heat-related deaths would exceed 1.2 million. Let’s try and avoid that scenario.
And the continuation of this newsletter.