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Abstract

Climate mitigation and impacts are not separate spheres – they interact. Mitigation reduces climate damages, while avoided damages preserve resources for emissions reductions. Successes and failures in this nexus also affect geopolitical, geoeconomic and security risks, not least due to their capacity to shape socioeconomic fortunes. This profile focuses on Nigeria, which faces high transition and physical climate risks simultaneously. Modelling has been used to understand possible “double cost crunch” pressures – a development-phase macroeconomic squeeze in which physical climate impacts reduce growth, productivity, fiscal space and domestic investment capacity, while a low-carbon transition requires large up-front capital mobilisation, infrastructure buildout, and institutional reform. In Nigeria, these pressures interact – climate damages raise adaptation needs and can weaken revenues, while transition needs increase financing requirements precisely when capital remains expensive and public resources are under pressure. The result can be a compression of near-term policy space at a critical stage of structural transformation. The geopolitical and security dimensions of this are highlighted and recommendations are offered.