Introduction

Nigeria’s administrative structure ensures that state governments determine land-use outcomes, infrastructure investments, environmental regulation, service delivery, and budget priorities that shape both climate vulnerability and resilience. This is because the actual actions that feed into Nigeria’s national climate efforts are taken at the subnational level (its thirty-six states). Yet, until recently, climate governance at the state level remained largely invisible, weakly institutionalised, and politically deprioritised.

When the Subnational Climate Governance Performance Rating and Ranking (SCGPR) was introduced in 2024, it addressed a fundamental gap: there was no credible, comparative, and evidence-based mechanism to assess how Nigeria’s 36 states were governing climate action. There was no assessment tool to measure and rate the level of performance of the subnationals on their climate action in alignment with national priorities and commitment to climate goals. States with high-level climate governance performance went unnoticed, and states underperforming saw no need to be motivated on climate governance. Most importantly, no clearly articulated governance framework to guide action. That has tremendously changed now. SCGPR 1.0 (2024) and 2.0 (2025) fundamentally changed that reality. Nigeria has witnessed a huge impact on the level of performance of subnational climate governance.

With the SCGPR, for the first time, state climate governance performance became measurable, comparable, and publicly visible. It has also helped guide what effective climate governance at the subnational level should look like through its recommendation of a climate governance framework. We have also witnessed how climate governance moved from internal bureaucratic conversations into public, political, and media discourse. Governors, Commissioners, and senior government officials have begun to view climate action as a governance and leadership issue, not merely an environmental obligation. High-level motivation to pursue climate governance at the state level has now become a key indicator for good governance, with more citizens asking the state governments questions from the perspective of the rating exercise. There is therefore a need to continue with this, but in a more advanced manner that motivates implementation while also encouraging policy development. That is what the SCGPR 3.0 will focus on.