As Africa cooks, inequality is baked in. A study in Nairobi found that it was several degrees hotter in dense slums than in the leafy surroundings of the meteorological department, where official readings are taken. Many Africans toil outside, in jobs from farming to roadside carpentry. In Swahili, east Africa’s lingua franca, informal work is known as jua kali (hot sun). The sapping effects of heat drain the equivalent of 161 labour hours from the average African worker a year, reckons the Lancet Countdown, an international group of researchers. That reduces potential earnings of formally employed workers by 4% (data for informal or unpaid work are sparse).
