Africa must be at the center of climate justice
The continent also holds extraordinary reserves of the critical minerals the green transition depends on.
Text size
The continent also holds extraordinary reserves of the critical minerals the green transition depends on.
Africa is not waiting.
Africa is moving. Africa is leading.
African countries are driving one of the defining debates of our time — how to reform a global financial architecture designed in 1945 for a world that no longer exists.
Africa played a leading role in the approval of the Pact for the Future in the General Assembly of the United Nations.
It is African leadership building new tools like the Borrowers’ Platform — so that debtor countries can speak as one and negotiate from strength; challenging the credit ratings system, that locks too many out of the borrowing tools they need.
It is African leadership that helped secure the Sevilla Commitment — to expand the lending power of multilateral development banks, to mobilize private capital at scale, and to deliver relief from the debt burden crushing developing economies.
It is African leadership — through the African Development Bank — that is advancing a bold vision to reform the continent’s financial architecture from within, mobilizing African resources for African priorities and prosperity.
Africa is driving a UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation — so that countries are no longer cheated out of what is rightfully theirs.
I want to praise African leaders that have understood that is absolutely essential to do everything, together with policies and strategies, to mobilize a much stronger share of natural resources in order to be able to accelerate the development of the continent.
And it is African leadership — alongside the small island States and other developing countries on the frontlines — that has placed the climate emergency where it belongs: at the center of the global agenda.
This is not a continent waiting for solutions. This is a continent producing them. But let us be honest about what stands in Africa’s way. A global system designed without Africa — and still largely operating without Africa, perpetuating century-old injustices.
A continent of more than one and a half billion people, with no permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council, as was referred by President William Ruto.
And without the voice, representation, and decision-making power it deserves inside the international financial institutions that shape its economy.
It is not Africa that loses. It is the world that loses by the fact that the voice of Africa is not conveniently taken into account.
Meanwhile, as we well know, Official Development Assistance is collapsing. Aid budgets cut, partnerships unwound, commitments walked back — just as the need is greatest. This is not only a financing crisis. It is a crisis of solidarity.
Take climate change. Africa did not cause it, yet the continent is warming faster than the global average — bearing the harshest consequences, in displaced communities, lost harvests, and economic shocks.
Today’s global energy turmoil — volatile fossil fuel markets, fragmenting trade — is deepening fiscal stress, inflation, and stunted development across the continent.
Africa must be at the center of climate justice. The continent holds 60 percent of the world’s best solar potential — and receives two percent of global clean energy investment.
With the right finance, Africa could generate ten times more electricity than it needs by 2040 — entirely from renewables.
Yet, six hundred million Africans live without electricity. One billion still rely on unclean cooking — a crisis that takes 800,000 lives a year, mostly women and children, mostly out of sight.
And on average, the continent faces borrowing costs twice as high as OECD countries — draining resources that should be building its future.
That is not a market verdict on Africa. It is a verdict on the injustices of the system.
The continent also holds extraordinary reserves of the critical minerals the green transition depends on.
For too long, the pattern has been the same: Africa’s resources have been extracted, the value captured elsewhere, the environmental damage left behind.
The United Nations Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals points the way: fair value chains, in-country processing and manufacturing, transparency, environmental and human rights standards — and meaningful benefits for affected communities.
No more exploitation. No more plundering. The people of Africa must benefit, first and most, from the resources of Africa.
Going back to climate change, adaptation must no longer be an afterthought. The adaptation finance gap must be closed.
Africa is paying an enormous price in relation to the devastation caused by climate change and Africa has been denied the resources and the capacities to protect the population and infrastructure in these circumstances. Climate finance with justice is a must in today’s world.
(United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks at the opening of the Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi, Kenya on 12 May 2026.)
