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Nigeria's Coastal Highway: Climate Risk or Development Dream?
8 Jun
Summary
- Nigeria's $11 billion coastal highway faces criticism for climate change risks.
- Rising sea levels threaten the newly constructed highway along the Nigerian coast.
- The project is a flagship initiative aimed at revolutionizing transportation and tourism.
Nigeria's government is pushing forward with the $11 billion Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, a 700-kilometer project designed to connect Lagos to Calabar.
President Bola Tinubu inaugurated the first section of the highway, promoting it as a revolutionary transportation and tourism project.
However, environmentalists and scientists express grave concerns about the highway's sustainability given rising sea levels and coastal erosion along the Gulf of Guinea.
Experts warn that the road, built by Hitech, is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, with projections indicating significant sea level rise by 2100.
The project is also under scrutiny for potentially impacting protected forest areas and mangrove ecosystems, exacerbating biodiversity loss.
Local communities fear displacement as development progresses, raising further questions about the project's human and environmental cost.
