Africa needs $277bn a year to meet climate commitments – UN

Africa needs $277 billion annually to implement its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) through 2030, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) has said.

The ECA said finance remains the biggest obstacle to implementing climate mitigation and adaptation projects across the continent.

The commission also noted that Africa contributes less than 4 percent of global emissions but bears disproportionate climate impacts, warning against allowing this to define the continent’s climate story solely through vulnerability.

“Africa contributes less than 4 percent of global emissions but bears disproportionate impacts. We must not allow it to limit Africa’s climate story to one of victimhood,” the commission said.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the Fourteenth Conference on Climate Change and Development in Africa (CCDA-14) in Addis Ababa on Monday, ECA Executive Secretary Claver Gatete said current climate finance flows cover only about 11 percent of the continent’s estimated annual NDC financing needs.

“We have negotiated commitments. We have set targets. And we have developed Nationally Determined Contributions and National Adaptation Plans. Yet implementation continues to lag behind,” he said.

Gatete, who presided over the ceremony alongside African Union Commission (AUC) Commissioner Moses Vilakati, said grants and concessional resources should take precedence over instruments that add to African countries’ debt burdens.

He said the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) could also help turn the continent’s renewable energy and critical mineral wealth into jobs and economic opportunities.

The conference is convened by ClimDev-Africa partners: the ECA, African Development Bank (AfDB) and African Union Commission (AUC).

Discussions over the next three days will feed into the Addis Ababa Climate Action Messages, shaping Africa’s position ahead of COP31 in Antalya and laying the groundwork for an African-led COP32 in 2027.

At the opening, delegates observed a minute of silence in solidarity with Nepal and others affected by extreme climate events.

In his address, Commissioner Vilakati said the question for CCDA-14 was not what Africa wants from COP32, but what the continent is prepared to propose. He identified climate finance and adaptation as top priorities, pointing to the Kampala Declaration and gaps highlighted by the Africa Early Warning Forum this year.

Similarly, the Executive Director of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, Mithika Mwenda, said CCDA-14 could not be “another talk shop.” The 2025 Addis Ababa Declaration, he said, must move from declaration to delivery.

The AfDB’s Coordinator for the Climate and Development Special Fund, James Kinyangi, outlined the numbers behind the bank’s Climate Action Window: $450.9 million mobilised from seven donors, $386 million committed across 79 projects, and early-warning coverage reaching 15 million people in 12 countries.

He also said the bank had mobilised $8.4 billion for adaptation and delivered $3.3 billion of its $6.5 billion Great Green Wall pledge.

The representative of Afreximbank, Olubunmi Obasanjo-Williams, said the institution would direct 5 percent of its long-term loans to climate finance by 2030, with 70 percent earmarked for adaptation.

She cited the $3 billion DRC-Zambia Battery Value Chain project, being implemented in collaboration with the ECA and other partners, as an example of what such financing could achieve.

CCDA-14 runs through September 9 and is expected to produce a COP31 strategic framework, a COP32 Presidency options paper and a unified African Common Position.