Background
Climate change is increasingly recognized as a driver of cancer risk through worsening air pollution, extreme heat, flooding, and environmental degradation. In low and middle income countries (LMICs) including Nigeria, these exposures coupled with weak environmental regulation, high reliance on biomass fuels, and constrained health systems, amplifying population vulnerability. In Nigeria, over 80% of fine particulate matter (PM?.?) pollution originates from fossil fuel combustion and biomass burning, contributing substantially to lung and other pollution related cancers. While Nigeria’s National Climate Change Policy (NCCP 2021–2030) acknowledges health as a vulnerable sector, the extent to which cancer prevention and environmentally driven cancer risks are integrated into climate governance remains unclear.
 
Objectives
This study examined how Nigeria’s national climate policy integrates health considerations relevant to cancer prevention and control and identified opportunities to strengthen alignment between climate action, environmental risk management, and national cancer control efforts.
 
Methods
A qualitative policy and evidence synthesis was conducted, reviewing Nigeria’s National Climate Change Policy alongside complementary national frameworks, including the National Cancer Control Plan (2023–2027), the National Non-Communicable Disease Policy, and the recently developed National Health Adaptation Plan. Global epidemiological and climate-health evidence from the 2025 WHO Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change and the UNEP Adaptation Gap Report (2025) were analyzed to contextualize national policy gaps. Knowledge translation activities included the development of a policy brief, a published opinion article in a national newspaper and a stakeholder engagement with the National Climate Change Council. The work was implemented in partnership with Nigeria Health Watch, supporting policy communication, stakeholder engagement, and capacity building for evidence based policy making 
 
Results
The analysis found that although health is recognized as a vulnerable sector within Nigeria’s climate policy, cancer prevention and environmentally driven cancer risks are not explicitly addressed. Key gaps include the absence of cancer relevant indicators within climate monitoring frameworks, limited application of health impact assessments to climate related projects, and weak institutional coordination between the environmental, and health sector. National and global evidence indicates that PM?.? exposure contributes to a substantial proportion of lung cancer mortality in Nigeria, while flooding and inadequate waste management increase exposure to carcinogenic contaminants. Policy communication outputs indicated strong stakeholder interest in integrating health and cancer metrics into climate policy implementation.
 
Conclusions 
Integrating cancer prevention into national climate governance presents a critical opportunity to reduce environmentally driven cancer risks while advancing climate resilience in Nigeria. Embedding health indicators into climate monitoring systems, institutionalizing health impact assessments, and strengthening cross-sectoral governance can deliver measurable public health co-benefits. These findings demonstrate how climate policy can function as a cancer prevention tool in LMICs and highlight the value of science–policy communication partnerships in translating evidence into policy relevant action.