Africa is both on the frontlines of the climate crisis and a source of solutions, driving innovation in agroecology, renewable energy, and grassroots climate action. Africa is demonstrating resilience, creativity, and leadership in the face of mounting environmental challenges. Despite contributing less than 10% of global emissions, it is disproportionately affected, facing severe climate shocks that threaten food systems, livelihoods, and stability. Nine out of the 10 countries most affected by climate change are in Africa (Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative ranking, 2025). With impacts intensifying and economic losses mounting, climate change is increasingly undermining Africa’s development and amplifying hunger, insecurity, and displacement.
CLIMATE IMPACT – CONTINENTAL
The WMO State of the Climate in Africa 2024 confirms that the average annual surface temperature across Africa was 0.86°C above the 1991–2020 average in 2024, making it the warmest or second-warmest year on record. North Africa was the fastest-warming sub-region (1.28°C above the long-term average). African countries are losing 2–5% of GDP per year to climate extremes, with some diverting up to 9% of national budgets to crisis response – resources unavailable for development, education or healthcare.
Africa’s critical minerals are central to the energy transition, but extraction risks land grabs and human rights abuses. Climate change is also intensifying resource conflicts, displacement, and inequality, as well as ecosystem degradation, deepening structural injustices rooted in colonial extraction and debt.
Climate change amplifies gender, economic, and social inequalities, impacting the most vulnerable groups, including women farmers, pastoralists, informal workers, people with disabilities, refugees, displaced communities and Indigenous peoples the hardest and threatening livelihoods, especially in agriculture which is the backbone of many African economies and on which over 60% of Africans depend for survival (FAO, 2023). Meanwhile, limited climate finance often fails to reach those most in need and is largely provided as loans, further increasing debt burdens.
DEBT – CLIMATE FINANCE TRAP
The WMO State of the Climate in Africa 2024 confirms that the average annual surface temperature across Africa was 0.86°C above the 1991–2020 average in 2024, making it the warmest or second-warmest year on record. North Africa was the fastest-warming sub-region (1.28°C above the long-term average). African countries are losing 2-5% of GDP per year to climate extremes, with some diverting up to 9% of national budgets to crisis response – resources unavailable for development, education or healthcare.
Despite major challenges, Africa demonstrates strong resilience and leadership, with climate action driven by youth, feminist, Indigenous and agroecological movements. Regional frameworks and initiatives like the Africa Youth Climate Assembly advocating for inclusive climate policies and a “by Africa for Africa” agenda, pushing for debt restructuring and a new Global Climate Finance Charter, emphasize the continent’s potential as a climate solution leader. Alongside recent work pushing for increased adaptation finance and loss and damage funding, these efforts position Africa as a key actor in shaping a just energy transition and global climate agenda.
AFRICA’S UNIFIED POSITION – ACS2 AND COP30
The Addis Ababa Declaration adopted at the Second Africa Climate Summit (8–10 September 2025) put Africa’s climate finance need at USD 300 billion for adaptation alone and called for the Africa Climate Innovation Compact and African Climate Facility to mobilise USD 50 billion annually. At COP30 in Belém, Parties agreed to triple adaptation finance to developing countries by 2035 and noted the Baku-to-Belém Roadmap to mobilise USD 1.3 trillion per year by 2035. Civil society notes that the COP30 tripling commitment is non-binding, lacks a clear baseline, and extends beyond African priorities for action this decade.
Although climate finance flows to Africa have increased significantly in recent years, in 2022 it covered only 23% of the $277 billion needed annually to implement its Nationally Determined Contributions between 2020 and 2030. In addition, most funding comes as loans, increasing debt and limiting investment capacity, while weak transparency and access for local communities deepen the imbalance.
CLIMATE FINANCE GAP
Climate finance flows to Africa grew 48% to USD 44 billion in 2021/22, but this is only 23% of the estimated annual need to implement Africa’s NDCs by 2030. The investment gap is 82% on mitigation and 80% on adaptation. Just ten countries receive 46% of all international climate finance, while the ten most climate-vulnerable countries receive only 11%. Only 10% of Africa’s total climate finance – USD 4.2 billion – originates from domestic actors.
Oxfam and CAN promote the “Polluter Pays” principle and advocate for grant-based, accessible climate finance with greater transparency and accountability. Oxfam has conducted regional and country-level climate finance research to generate evidence on how little climate finance is reaching Africa’s rural communities and with AfCJ supports civil society to influence decision-making, help communities access finance directly–while also engaging the private sector to scale solutions like micro-insurance for smallholder farmers.
Across Africa, communities are leading locally grounded adaptation efforts. Oxfam supports participatory planning, local resilience funds, and community-led solutions such as agroecology, climate-smart agriculture, water desalination and solar-powered irrigation and land restoration. We also pilot decentralized finance mechanisms to improve access, such as Payment for Ecosystem Services especially for rural groups and those in conflict and fragile settings. The COP30 pledge to at least triple adaptation finance by 2035 creates a key opportunity to secure grant-based, locally led funding that reaches communities directly.
Africa’s energy transition must balance justice and access. Around 600 million people in Africa still lack access to electricity, and close to 1 billion people rely on biomass and charcoal for cooking. Despite this widespread energy poverty, plans still favour fossil fuels and large projects that deepen inequality, while the potential of decentralized renewables like solar remains underused.
ENERGY ACCESS – THE FINANCING GAP
The IEA’s 2025 Financing Electricity Access in Africa report finds that USD 150 billion (about USD 15 billion per year, six times current levels) is needed to deliver universal electricity access in Africa by 2035. Yet less than USD 2.5 billion was committed for new sub-Saharan African connections in 2023, and clean energy investment in Africa has fallen by nearly one-third over the past decade to about USD 20 billion per year – less than 2% of the global total.
Our vision for a just energy transition in Africa links climate, economic, and resource justice by expanding access to clean, affordable, decentralized energy led by local communities. We support communities to assert their rights, ensure inclusive design–especially for women–and promote transparent, accountable energy systems.
We advocate for energy transition frameworks that create an enabling environment for investments in cleaner and greener options of energy, and to open up civic space for front-line communities to demand the principles of Free, Prior and Informed Consent, Polluter Pays Principles and accountability for inclusive energy systems. We also engage in Nationally Determined Contributions and other national planning and policy processes to hold governments accountable for inclusive and rights-based energy transition commitments, supporting civil society to monitor implementation and shape Just Energy Transition Partnerships, highlighting the need for more stable, African-led financing solutions.
JUST TRANSITION – DONOR RELIABILITY
In February 2025 the United States formally withdrew from the South Africa Just Energy Transition Partnership, citing executive orders under the new US administration. Its commitment had been USD 56 million in grants and USD 1 billion in commercial DFC finance, bringing total international JET pledges to South Africa down from USD 13.8 to USD 12.8 billion. South Africa’s JETP debt-to-GDP is already ~74% and debt service consumes over 20% of national expenditure – limiting fiscal space for adaptation and reinforcing the case for grant-based finance flowing directly to African-led instruments such as the African Climate Facility and the Climate Justice Impact Fund for Africa announced at ACS2.
Critical minerals like cobalt and lithium are essential for clean energy but are often linked to rights abuses and environmental harm. A4CJ supports communities to understand and defend their rights, while advocating for stronger due diligence, corporate accountability, and fair benefit-sharing at community and national level.
Civic space across Africa is increasingly under threat, with environmental defenders and youth activists facing intimidation and arrest. Yet across the continent social movements are growing in influence, in part thanks to the continent’s large youth population, using art, storytelling, legal advocacy, and organizing to demand governmental accountability and climate justice.
CIVIC SPACE – ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENDERS
Global Witness recorded 9 lethal attacks against land and environmental defenders in Africa in 2024 (DRC 4, Liberia 3, Cameroon 1, Madagascar 1). The DRC is the deadliest country in Africa with 78 cases between 2012 and 2024 — almost two-thirds of all African cases. Between December 2023 and August 2024, at least 96 people were reportedly detained or arrested for opposing the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) in Uganda and Tanzania. Global Witness notes these figures are “most likely a gross underestimate” given the severe repression of civic space.
We partner with community, youth, and women-led groups to build awareness, strengthen movements, and support advocacy, including through initiatives like climate caravans and cross-sector convenings. We also leverage digital tools to train activists, foster regional learning, and provide rapid support to those at risk.