Published

1 year ago

December 24, 2024

Alice Rush

Ambassador Ali Mohamed is Kenya’s Special Envoy for Climate Change and Chair of the Africa Group of Negotiators at the COP29 UN climate conference.

At COP29 in Baku, governments are convening to negotiate scaling up climate finance commitments, to keep the 1.5°C goal within reach and ensure sufficient funding to address escalating climate impacts.

The Independent High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance has concluded that emerging markets and developing countries, excluding China, will require approximately $2.4 trillion in annual investments by 2030 to fund energy transitions, adaptation and resilience, address loss and damage, and conserve and restore nature. This amount is four times higher than current levels.

With the backdrop of this global financing imperative, Africa has positioned itself as a key player in the climate action agenda. The Nairobi Declaration on Climate Change and Call to Action, adopted at the inaugural Africa Climate Summit in 2023, articulates a bold vision to tackle both the climate crisis and Africa’s economic development needs through climate-positive growth.

Leveraging Africa’s immense human and natural resources, the Declaration emphasised the continent’s potential to play a central role in the global climate effort, notably by harnessing renewable energy for industrial activity; deploying climate-smart, restorative agricultural practices; and enhancing nature and biodiversity.

Climate-positive growth in Africa is inseparable from the urgent need to scale climate finance. Realising this dual priority is not just a regional challenge – it is a global one. What future can we imagine for Africa and its neighbours if global temperatures exceed 1.5°C?

From cyclone to drought, Zimbabwe’s climate victims struggle to adapt

Even at 1.3°C of warming above pre-industrial levels, the continent has already faced devastating consequences. Wildfires have ravaged Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, taken lives and destroyed landscapes. Droughts in the Greater Horn of Africa have wiped out 9.5 million livestock across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, followed by flash floods that have claimed nearly 600 lives in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya and Rwanda.

Unpredictable rainfall has caused injury, loss, and damage for nearly four million people in southern Africa, the Greater Horn and Madagascar. In Mozambique and Malawi, cyclones have resulted in 500 deaths and displaced half a million people. Without immediate action, further declines in livelihoods and mass emigration to less climate-vulnerable countries are inevitable.

Millions of green jobs

If there is success in the COP29 climate finance negotiations, the future of our continent could be transformative. We can achieve the vision of green industrialisation and see the creation of millions of green jobs, along expanded and resilient global value chains.

COP28 set a goal of tripling renewable energy by 2030 while transitioning away from fossil fuels. Africa, with 60% of the world’s best solar resources, holds a key to this transition.

We possess the bulk of the critical minerals that the world needs to decarbonise energy and transport. We possess one-third of the global potential for additional carbon sequestration from natural capital. We possess the greatest potential to increase food production. And most of all, our continent is young, motivated and entrepreneurial.

Q&A: What you need to know about clean energy and critical minerals supply chains

Africa is poised to make a major contribution to the global decarbonisation effort and lead the next wave of industrialisation by building modern, green industries.

Progress is being made across the continent. For instance, Angola, Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia are climbing the value-addition chain from resource extraction to mineral beneficiation and manufacturing. Other countries are looking into the production of green hydrogen for export, particularly Mauritania, Morocco, and Namibia.

While African governments are already putting in place policies and investment plans to make green industrialisation a reality, we need access to markets, certainty on carbon pricing, and long-term offtake agreements to unlock new forms of capital seeking emissions reductions, among other things.

Climate finance can bridge the gap between lowest-cost and green options, as well as provide support for technical studies and help mobilise capital investment through long-term emissions reductions purchase agreements.

The Africa Green Industrialisation Initiative and the Accelerated Partnership for Renewables in Africa, launched at COP28, are providing avenues for scaling up these nascent efforts.

At COP29, the Government of Kenya will be convening world leaders to drive this action agenda, embracing disruptive partnerships and unconventional alliances to leapfrog outdated industrial models. Africa has the potential to lead the green industrial revolution and increased climate finance is the backbone of this vision.

The outcomes of the COP29 negotiations must deliver for Africa’s climate-positive agenda. The alternative is simply not an option.

The post With increased climate finance, Africa can lead the green industrial revolution appeared first on Climate Home News.

https://www.climatechangenews.com/2024/11/12/with-increased-climate-finance-africa-can-lead-the-green-industrial-revolution/

Climate Change

Greenpeace’s Dutch Anti-SLAPP Case Against Oil Pipeline Giant Advances

Published

5 hours ago

June 21, 2026

Alice Rush

But a $345 million U.S. verdict against the environmental group hangs over the case.

By Dana Drugmand

A lawsuit filed by Greenpeace International against the U.S.-based fossil fuel company Energy Transfer in the Netherlands is moving forward after a Dutch court recently ruled in favor of the environmental organization in rejecting the company’s bid to toss out the case.

Greenpeace’s Dutch Anti-SLAPP Case Against Oil Pipeline Giant Advances

Climate Change

The Search for Super Reefs

Published

5 hours ago

June 21, 2026

Alice Rush

Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and oceans correspondent Teresa Tomassoni as they discuss the search for heat-resilient coral reefs that are somehow defying the odds to survive a warming planet.

By Teresa Tomassoni

The world has already lost more than half of its coral reefs, and most of what remains is at risk of disappearing in the next 25 years.

The Search for Super Reefs

Climate Change

DeBriefed 19 June 2026: Bonn talks end in ‘gridlock’ | Energy’s ‘new era’ | Oceans in climate negotiations

Published

1 day ago

June 20, 2026

Alice Rush

Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.

This week

Bonn talks close

‘SIDE-STEPPING AND STALLING’: UN climate talks in Bonn have ended in “gridlock”, according to Climate Home News. The outlet reported on the failure to balance developing countries’ need for climate-adaptation finance with “richer nations’ desire to move forward” on emissions cuts. It added that both topics were subject to “rule 16”, meaning no agreement could be reached and work will be pushed to the COP31 summit in Turkey. Inside Climate News quoted UN climate executive secretary Simon Stiell, who said the talks had seen “side-stepping and stalling”.

JUST TRANSITION: One “glimmer of hope” came from negotiations on achieving a “just transition”, reported Euronews. The news outlet said negotiators “made headway on operationalising the Belém-Antalya mechanism”, intended to support people in the shift to a low-carbon economy. However, Politico concluded that much of the focus in Bonn had “shift[ed] to efforts outside diplomatic talks – raising questions about the future of global climate negotiations”.

‘ATTACKING SCIENCE’: Agence France-Presse reported on the EU, Switzerland and “dozens of developing nations” warning of “attacks on science” by a “small group of fossil-fuels interests” in Bonn. Table Briefings explained that “the 1.5C target is increasingly being challenged” and the role of the UN climate-science panel – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – in an upcoming assessment of global climate progress “remains controversial”. See Carbon Brief’s full write-up of the talks for more detail.

US-Iran deal

PRICE DROP: The US and Iran announced that they have reached an interim agreement to halt the war and reopen the strait of Hormuz, reported Bloomberg. Oil prices have fallen, as the “long-awaited deal” began the process of “eas[ing]” the global energy crisis triggered by the conflict, according to the New York Times. The Associated Press noted that high fuel prices will “likely outlast the Iran war”.

‘OIL GLUT’: The Financial Times reported that the International Energy Agency (IEA) has forecast a “glut of oil” emerging next year, if the peace deal holds. The IEA said this would allow countries to build new strategic reserves, as they “review their energy strategies and policies in response to the crisis”, according to Reuters.

‘NEW ERA’: Agence France-Presse reported that oil and gas companies have “few illusions about a return to normal for the Gulf energy industry after more than three months of blockage”. One analyst told the newswire that the war “showed the oil and gas industry that Hormuz risk is no longer just a geopolitical headline”.

Around the world

OCEAN MONITOR: The Trump administration is “abandoning its plan” to dismantle a $368m ocean monitoring system key for tracking climate change after a “bipartisan backlash on Capitol Hill”, reported the New York Times.
CORAL HAVEN: The New York Times covered preliminary research, presented at the Our Ocean Conference in Kenya, suggesting there could be three times as many “coral refugia” – where corals are relatively safe from climate change – than previously thought.
BAD CREDIT: Down to Earth reported that the first carbon credits issued under the Paris Agreement’s new Article 6.4 mechanism are “facing scrutiny over alleged links to institutions controlled by Myanmar’s military junta”.
OIL BACKTRACK: Reuters reported that oil-and-gas company Equinor has dropped a renewable-energy target and scaled back clean investments, while another Reuters story noted that Shell is selling off its offshore wind assets.

1.1 billion

The number of children facing “at least three overlapping climate hazards”, according to a new Unicef report covered by Agence France-Presse.

Latest climate research

Including the “permafrost carbon-climate feedback” in climate models increases the chance of exceeding “tipping elements” – such as the Greenland ice sheets, Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation or Amazon rainforest – by up to 50% | Environmental Research Letters
The intensity of influenza outbreaks could decline in temperate regions, but increase in tropical areas over the next century, as the climate warms | PNAS Nexus
European snow cover has declined by 20% for December and January since the start of the industrial era, revealing an “unprecedented ongoing shrinkage of European winters” | Communications Earth & Environment

(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)

Captured

The more than 2m battery electric vehicles (BEVs), 1m “plug-in” hybrids (PHEVs) and 100,000 electric vans on UK roads are already saving drivers a total of around £3bn a year, according to new Carbon Brief analysis. This amounts to savings of more than £1,100 a year in fuel costs for each BEV driver in the UK. The analysis comes amid reports in UK media this week that the government is considering “watering down” its EV sales targets.

Spotlight

Oceans rising at UN climate talks

The state of the world’s oceans is inextricably linked to the changing climate – and many delegates at UN climate talks want to see more focus on this issue, reports Carbon Brief.

Oceans are often described as the world’s “greatest ally” against climate change – absorbing 30% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and most of the heat generated by those emissions.

They are also the site of important climate solutions, such as huge offshore windfarms and the shipping industry’s transition to cleaner fuels.

At the same time, the oceans themselves present a growing danger to coastal communities and sea life due to sea level rise, marine heatwaves and ocean acidification.

These diverse issues have led to growing calls within the UN climate process for more focus on oceans. During climate negotiations this week in Bonn – known as SB64 – nations and civil society had a chance to air these views during an “ocean and climate change dialogue”.

‘Elevate action’

Oceans first entered UN climate outcomes in 2019, when the final COP25 negotiated text requested a new “dialogue” on “the ocean and climate change to consider how to strengthen mitigation and adaptation action”.

The following years saw this dialogue established as an annual event. However, the political weight of these discussions has been limited.

COP31 is being co-led by Turkey and Australia, but with Pacific islands playing a supporting role. These small islands sometimes self-identify as “large ocean states”, stressing the ocean’s centrality in their societies.

In Bonn, figures from across the presidency threw their weight behind this issue. Chris Bowen, an Australian minister and incoming COP31 “president of negotiations”, told attendees:

“Australia, Turkey and the Pacific see an important opportunity to elevate ocean-based climate action.”

Ocean dialogue breakout group. Credit: IISD/ENB, Maja Schmidt-Thomé.

Strategies and finance

The two-day dialogue in Bonn involved a series of panels, statements and breakout groups.

One of the main topics was how oceans are integrated into national climate plans under the Paris Agreement, known as “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs).

Three-quarters of the latest round of NDCs mention oceans, with conservation of “blue carbon” ecosystems the most frequently described action. (Landscapes such as mangroves can both absorb CO2 and protect coastal areas.)

Delegates also discussed alignment with the UN biodiversity process, as well as ocean finance, which currently makes up less than 1% of all climate finance.

(As discussions were taking place in Bonn, country officials also gathered in Mombasa, Kenya for the 11th Our Ocean Conference. Carbon Brief’s associate editor Giuliana Viglione attended the conference and will publish a full summary shortly.)

Developing countries were clear that many of the ocean-related actions in their NDCs would depend on receiving more financial support.

‘Political momentum’

With the backing of the COP31 presidency, delegates were hopeful about where this year’s dialogue could lead.

Charles Hamilton, an advisor for the Bahamas who spoke for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) in the dialogue, told Carbon Brief that island representatives “are not traveling thousands of miles to just talk and pat ourselves on the back”. He added:

“A dialogue that just remains a dialogue is just more talk – no action.”

Given that, he said “discussions in the dialogue must move into COP decisions and the decisions must be actioned”, noting the importance of finance.

Marina Corrêa, oceans lead at WWF-Brazil, pointed to an upcoming UN climate change Standing Committee on Finance forum as a space to ramp up pressure on ocean finance.

More broadly, she wanted to see the presidencies translate their support into a “leader-level ocean initiative” that could “mainstream” oceans across negotiations.

“We have a really interesting opportunity, in terms of political momentum,” Corrêa told Carbon Brief.

Watch, read, listen

‘HOTTER THAN HELL’: An episode of the BBC’s Rare Earth podcast titled “hotter than hell” considered the issue of extreme heat, with input from experts and “people facing up to the hottest temperatures on the planet”.

NOT BROKEN?: John Drake, a professor of ecology at the University of Georgia, wrote an essay for Aeon – also re-published as a Guardian “long read” – questioning the framing of ecosystems and climate systems “breaking down”.

ON COURSE: On his Volts podcast, US climate journalist David Roberts interviewed UK climate minister Katie White, quizzing her about whether the UK will “stay the course with its climate plans”.

Coming up

20-28 June: London climate action week
21 June: Colombia presidential runoff
24 June: UK Climate Change Committee progress in reducing emissions 2026 report to parliament

Pick of the jobs

Mongabay, managing editor – Africa | Salary: Unknown. Location: Global
Contexte, environment reporter – Brussels | Salary: €45,000-€60,000. Location: Brussels
Climate 200, communications director | Salary: Unknown. Location: Australia
Energy Tracker Asia, energy transition correspondent | Salary: $3,000-$4,000 per month. Location: South-east Asia (remote)

DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.

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