The numbers are in, and they are searing. The World Meteorological Organisation, alongside NASA, the UK Met Office, and others, crowned 2024 the hottest year on record—1.55°C above pre-industrial levels, according to January 2025 reports. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration concurs, noting that the planet’s warmest years since 1850 have all crammed into the last decade. Here in Freetown, the heat is no abstract statistic. Sierra Leone’s Meteorological Agency charts a relentless climb: average annual highs leapt from 29°C in 2021 to 32°C in 2024. For a city perched on a peninsula already battered by nature’s whims, this escalation is a clarion call.
I felt the urgency firsthand earlier this month at the African Urban Heat Summit, convened in Freetown on 6 February. Amid discussions of “heat plans” and climate resilience, a sobering reality emerged: grand initiatives, however well-intentioned, often falter for lack of funds. Sierra Leone’s government struggles to keep pace with crises—health, housing, sanitation—leaving little room for costly climate fixes. Yet as a resident, I refuse to resign myself to helplessness. Extreme heat may be global, but its remedies can be local, lean, and within our grasp. Here’s how we might shield ourselves without breaking the bank.
Halting the Axe and Flame
Deforestation is torching Freetown’s natural defences. As Mohamed Ismail Kamara wrote in the Sierra Leone Telegraph last March, the city’s sprawl and hunger for resources have razed forests at an alarming clip, shredding ecosystems that once tempered heat and harboured biodiversity. Citizens clear land for homes, lighting fires that choke the air and strip shade. The fix? Enforce existing laws—ruthlessly. Designate protected zones and deploy police and community workers, already on the payroll, to patrol them. No new bureaucracy needed; just will. A greener Freetown could cool us, if only we’d let the trees stand.
Taming the Filth
Then there’s the muck. Freetown’s streets and gutters brim with waste, a cesspit born of poor sanitation that amplifies heat’s sting. The World Bank’s Water Blog in 2021 warned that filthy conditions worsen climate impacts, and the numbers here are grim: only 17% of Sierra Leoneans have basic sanitation, per a 2021 Joint Monitoring Programme report—26% in urban areas, a measly 10% in rural ones. Toilets are scarce; open defecation is routine. This isn’t just a hygiene crisis—it’s a heat trap, as clogged drains and reeking piles bake under the sun.
The remedy starts with enforcement, again. Sanitation officers must scour hotspots, pinpointing where facilities are absent, and build basic toilets—simple, affordable structures. On-the-spot fines for littering or public relief could fund daily clean-ups of gutters and roads. Businesses, especially in central and outer districts, could pitch in, incentivised by tax breaks or public praise. Markets, too, need order: relocate roadside vendors—exposed all day to blazing rays—into shaded, designated zones. Education must hum alongside, a steady drumbeat of awareness. Small steps, consistently taken, could scrub the city cooler.
Harvesting the Rains
Sierra Leone is drenched in paradox: one of the world’s wettest nations, yet parched when heat peaks. The United Nations ranks us third globally for annual rainfall, behind only Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Those torrents, if captured, could be our salvation. Harvesting rainwater—via barrels, tanks, or even makeshift basins—costs little and pays dividends in the dry season. When temperatures soar, that water could flush filth, hydrate households, and douse the heat radiating from concrete. It’s a habit we can start now, house by house, no grand budget required.
These ideas aren’t flashy. They don’t demand millions or foreign aid. They lean on what we have: laws already written, workers already hired, rain already falling. The Heat Plan from the summit is a fine blueprint, but while we wait for its funding, we can act. Clean a gutter today, fine a polluter tomorrow, plant a tree next week. Consistency, not cash, is the backbone.
Global warming may be a juggernaut, but Freetown needn’t be its victim. The peninsula’s people have weathered worse—war, floods, Ebola—with ingenuity and grit. Heat is our latest foe, and these low-cost shields can blunt its edge. Enforcement and education, wielded daily, could cool our city just enough to endure. We don’t need a miracle. We need resolve.