From November 11 to 22, 2024, the world convened in Baku, Azerbaijan, for the 29th time for the UN Climate Conference (COP29). Through these conferences, the world has been grappling with the existential threat of climate change for almost three decades. However, apart from agreeing and committing—without honouring the commitments—nothing much has happened.
Climatic-driven calamities, ranging from recurring droughts in the Horn of Africa and flooding in Pakistan to wildfires in North America, are becoming increasingly common, leaving lost lives and millions of dollars worth of property destruction in their paths.
Two main issues are at stake here: reducing and eventually cutting (to zero) carbon dioxide emissions, technically called climate mitigation, and dealing with unfolding climate change impacts, or climate adaptation and resilience.
The latter has been Africa’s main preoccupation as the continent has borne the heaviest burden of climate change, from recurring extreme droughts to catastrophic floods. Much as Africa urgently needs help to repair and restore itself from losses and damage—in lost lives, ruined livelihoods, and destroyed property—her adaptive capacity is still very low.
Therefore, for most of the previous COPs, Africa has been relentlessly pleading with rich Western countries to bear the cost of repairing the losses and damages from climate change and helping the continent build robust adaptive capacity and resilience.
COP29 was dubbed ‘the Finance COP’ with expectations – mainly from Africa– that rich nations will finally agree and commit to providing the financing Africa desperately needs to deal with climate change.
Time to wake up
The time has come for Africa to wake up to the reality of global climate action. For nearly three decades, Africa has been wearing a ‘victim-innocent badge’ – a continent that is suffering the most from but has contributed the least to climate change.
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All the while, Africa has been pleading with rich countries responsible for messing up the climate to own up to their responsibility of wrecking the climate and take a leading role in helping the continent of Africa deal with the vulgarises of climate change through financial hand-outs for adaptation, resilience and mitigation initiatives on the continent.
But Baku was the exact opposite of what Africa expected.
Africa saw some hope on the horizon during COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009 when rich countries pledged US$100 billion annually by 2030, a pledge they never honoured. This was a strong message to Africa that rich countries they blame for wrecking the climate are not buying this ‘climate aid’ bid the continent has been pitching all these years.
So, when the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) proposed the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) in Baku, it seemed like an extension of the dream the continent has been dreaming of for nearly three decades.
The NCQG targeted financing in three main areas: adaptation, loss and damage, and mitigation, including just transition, which entails gradual withdrawal from fossil-fuelled economies. Africa demanded at least US$1.3 trillion annually by 2035 but was disappointingly promised US$300 billion by 2035.
The message was clear one more time: the rich are not bulging. Instead, they pushed for private-sector financing, while Africa is adamant about public financing through aid, grants, and soft loans.
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But Baku’s outcomes make it apparent that there won’t be any cash hand-outs flowing to Africa to help ‘the poor’ deal with the existential threat of climate change. The sooner Africa wakes up to this bitter reality and takes matters into her own hands, the better. Africa must look for alternative sources of finance to fund its climate action agenda.
Leverages
There are two areas where Africa has leverage against the rich: the decarbonisation of Western economies, i.e., the green transition agenda, and the commodification of climate mitigation. In both, Africa plays a twofold, very critical role.
With nearly 30 per cent of the world’s mineral reserves, Africa is rich in the so-called critical energy transition minerals like lithium, cobalt, nickel, and copper. For instance, the Kabanga Nickel Project in Tanzania constitutes one of the world’s largest development-ready nickel deposits.
These minerals are essential for clean energy transition technologies such as wind turbines, electricity transmission networks, and electric vehicles, which are vital to green transition, mainly in rich economies.
The continent also boasts rich forest ecosystems, such as the mighty Congo Basin Forest and other dense tropical rainforests in parts of West and Central Africa. These ecosystems are essential in carbon sequestration, and the rich produce huge excesses. For example, the Congo Basin has over 60 billion metric tons of carbon.
More so, Africa has enormous solar energy potential, thus creating a vast opportunity for both sources of renewable energy that can be exported to rich countries and augment their energy transition initiatives and renewable energy businesses on the continent that the rich are eying.
So, Africa has a bold decision to make: put a price tag on these amenities and get to business with the rich to raise the money she wants to deal with the climate crisis.
Renewable energy, for instance, is a big business now, with a global market size valued at US$1.2 trillion in 2024 and expected to grow to US$2 trillion by 2030. Clean energy investments in Africa alone are estimated to be slightly above US$ 40 billion, almost twice those in 2020.
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But if Africa does not wake up and do something about this, guess who will likely reap the benefits? It’s obvious: the rich West and, now with the rise of China and India, the rising East. Climate mitigation is a business now. The rich, from whom Africa wants financial handouts, want it, so they are pushing the world in that direction.
Repositioning
So, if Africa doesn’t reposition itself now, it will continue to play the historical role that was set to motion in Berlin in 1885-1885, a hunting ground for the rich countries, almost the same ones that colonised the continent in recent history.
Africa can raise the US$1.3 trillion it is begging from the West. It can do this if willing and ready to overhaul its legal and institutional—including governance—landscape to ensure that the continent gets paid fairly for the critical role it is playing in helping the world navigate through the climate crisis by producing the minerals the world needs to transition to greener economies and sequestering carbon in its rich forests.
This is already happening on the continent with rare earth minerals mining concessions and carbon trading projects. However, it is doubtful that Africa has done her math well this time to ensure they don’t end up with breadcrumbs as usual.
Another area that Africa can explore to raise money to fight climate change is carbon taxation—a fee imposed on the burning of carbon-based fuels. This can be levied on imported goods and services with carbon emission traces in their production and supply chains. This is a tall order for Africa but a realistic and feasible way forward.
Aid has never worked for Africa before, especially in fighting poverty, hunger and diseases. Why do we think it will now work on climate action on the continent? The global geopolitical landscape is shifting from traditional aid to business and trading, with the profit-seeking private sector leading the role.
Climate action is not excused from this; if anything, it is one of the most lucrative business opportunities. Africa must wake up to this reality.
Dr Ronald B. Ndesanjo is a climate, environment and sustainability expert with the Ecotan Consult (T) Ltd. He can be reached at ndesanjo@ecotanconsult.co.tz or on X as @ronaldndesanjo. The opinions expressed here are the writer’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of The Chanzo. If you are interested in publishing in this space, please contact our editors at editor@thechanzo.com.
