Climate connections: Lagos

Sub-Saharan Africa is becoming prone to more extreme weather

The BBC is visiting eight areas of the world to find how people are preparing for climate change. BBC Africa English reporter Uduak Amimo reports from the Nigerian city of Lagos.

9 DECEMBER 2009

8 DECEMBER 2009

7 DECEMBER 2009

BACKGROUND

Sub-Saharan Africa's greenhouse gas emissions are negligible. But its people - among the poorest in the world - are being hardest-hit by climate change.

The environmental changes could wipe out all the advances made in recent years to eradicate poverty.

Dry areas are getting drier, wetter areas are getting wetter.

In the last year alone, 25 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa have faced food crisis.

African heads of state have agreed to a "common position" on climate change. At Copenhagen, they will demand $67bn a year in compensation from the developed world, for mitigation and adaptation policies.

Nigeria needs money for both.

It is an oil producer which has done little to reduce its hugely wasteful gas-flaring policy - while millions of people in Lagos are threatened by rising sea levels.