As the COP30 opens, experts are seeking a climate diplomacy that reflects Africa’s realities and advances Nigeria’s interests, thereby securing finance, unlocking technology and building resilient futures for communities vulnerable to climate change.
As the 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30) opens in Belém, Brazil today, Africa and particularly Nigeria, find themselves once again at the crossroads of climate ambition and harsh reality.
Despite contributing less than four per cent of global greenhouse-gas emissions, the continent remains among the hardest hit by extreme weather events, deepening poverty and fragile ecosystems.
Yet, amid mounting losses and slow international response, African nations are pushing to redefine their place in the global climate conversation, demanding climate justice, equitable financing, and recognition of local realities in the pursuit of the Paris Agreement goals.
Africa’s demand for climate justice
At the heart of Africa’s position going into COP30 is a long-standing grievance that the gap between promises and actual support remains wide. More than a decade after wealthy nations pledged $100 billion annually to help developing countries tackle climate change, less than ten per cent of those funds arrive in Africa, according to recent United Nations data.
Although Africa endures losses equaling up to five per cent of its Gross Domestic Product each year due to climate impacts, it receives only a fraction of global climate finance. For countries like Nigeria, which face escalating floods, desertification and coastal erosion, this shortfall has been devastating.
A recent policy brief by Power Shift Africa highlights that Africa holds nearly 30 per cent of the world’s critical minerals needed for the green transition, has abundant renewable-energy resources and the world’s youngest workforce.
The continent is no longer simply a peripheral player in global climate action; it is a central driver of solutions. Climate shocks are already eroding development gains, destroying infrastructure and threatening millions of lives. Yet this is also a story of leadership and opportunity. Mobilising the $1.3 trillion Africa needs annually by 2030 is not just about addressing risk; it is about enabling resilient economies and long-term prosperity.
Africa’s regional institutions and initiatives, from the African Union’s Climate Change and Resilient Development Strategy to cross-border adaptation programmes, are crucial for managing shared ecosystems and river basins.
The conference in Belém provides a chance to scale up these efforts and strengthen collaboration through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Africa Climate Summit and the G20.
Aligning Africa’s regional strategies with global processes can attract new investment and ensure that adaptation and development advance together. Strong partnerships anchored in African-led institutions like the African Development Bank will be key to turning continental ambition into collective action.
African negotiators are expected to press for stronger commitments toward the Loss and Damage Fund established at COP27 in Egypt. The fund was intended to compensate nations suffering irreversible climate impacts, but questions persist about who controls it and how quickly money can reach affected countries.
Nigeria’s transition dilemma
Nigeria’s position in the climate debate is uniquely complex. The country has pledged to achieve net-zero emissions by 2060, an ambitious goal for an economy where oil and gas still account for over 80 per cent of export earnings and a significant share of government revenue. The Federal Government has rolled out several initiatives, including the Energy Transition Plan (ETP), the National Climate Change Act and renewable-energy targets aimed at shifting toward a greener economy. However, experts point out that implementation remains inconsistent across states.
Many analysts argue that Nigeria’s pathway to net-zero must be gradual and pragmatic, balancing economic realities with climate ambition. Several environmentalists support a hybrid energy model: expanding renewables such as solar and hydro while using natural gas as a short-term transition fuel. But financing remains a stubborn obstacle.
The World Bank estimates that Nigeria needs over $400 billion in clean-energy investments by 2050 to achieve its transition goals – a figure far beyond current domestic and donor capacity.
While developed countries debate emission-reduction targets, much of Africa’s immediate concern is adaptation and the need to survive the climate crisis already unfolding.
From droughts in the Horn of Africa to flooding in Nigeria’s Niger and Benue river basins, climate extremes are destroying lives, livelihoods and infrastructure. Africa’s adaptation needs are estimated at $50 billion yearly; yet only a fraction is being funded.
For Nigeria, a truly adaptation-centred outcome at COP30 would translate into direct financing for community-based resilience projects such as mangrove restoration, early-warning systems, sustainable agriculture and urban flood defences.
Nigeria has taken modest steps in that direction. The National Adaptation Plan is being finalised, focusing on flood control, resilient infrastructure and sustainable land use. But much depends on whether state governments integrate these plans into local development budgets, an area where there remains slow progress.
The accountability gap
Across Africa, one major challenge is not the absence of policy but the gap between policy and action. Nigeria, for instance, has one of the continent’s most comprehensive climate-governance frameworks, including the Climate Change Act of 2021, which mandates emissions budgeting and establishes a National Council on Climate Change.
However, critics say enforcement is weak and transparency remains elusive. Many climate projects are donor-driven with limited coordination, while domestic funding for environmental programmes remains below 2 per cent of the national budget.
According to Nnimmo Bassey, Director of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), this state of affairs is no accident. “It is not surprising that Africa does not receive a fair share of climate finance. The continent has been a source of extraction, especially colonial extraction, and now new dimensions of extraction, including financial and infrastructural variants, ensuring that the outflow is more than the inflow.”
He told The Guardian that one solution is for African leaders to demand payment of the climate debt owed to the continent for centuries of exploitation and climate impacts caused by major polluters.
Bassey argues that the narrative of net zero must be critically examined. “The arithmetic of net zero does not help the fight against the climate crisis. It allows nations and corporations to claim that they are taking actions that compensate for their inaction or pollution,” he said.
“It allows for false claims and extends a licence to polluters to keep polluting. Real climate action will promote economic well-being, be pro-people and pro-environment, create clean jobs, democratise access to clean energy and boost economic production. It would also spur support for research institutes, promote agro-ecological food production, build healthier soils and by extension healthier citizens.”
“The world needs to return to a regime of binding emissions cuts by the heavily polluting nations rather than the voluntary mechanisms of the Paris Agreement, carbon trading and offsets. We have to get the politics of climate justice right; otherwise, we will keep negotiating on a treadmill and make little or no progress,” he added. Bassey also emphasised that indigenous communities hold many of the solutions to the poly-crisis the world now faces.
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They have the indigenous agricultural and other technologies that must be recognised, promoted and supported. Indigenous communities must be in the driving seat of climate action – but this requires an elimination of the consumption modes powered by greed and convenience rather than what is needed.”
The Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Nigerian Environmental Study/Action Team (NEST), Prof Chinedum Nwajiuba, told The Guardian that funding Africa’s needs and challenges is not a priority for the Annexe 1 countries expected to provide those resources.
“In any case, most of them have their own rising challenges and unmet needs of their own citizens. This is partly responsible for the rising extreme-right-wing politics in those countries,” he noted. “There is the perception of corruption of African governments by those countries that often have records and statistics of corrupt monies hidden, sometimes in their own countries.”
He said: “We must look to our own domestic funds. When we have local governments receiving monthly up to N400 million, and commonly we do not even find most of their offices open, we struggle to know what such funds are used for.”
Despite this, Nwajiuba said it is still possible for Nigeria to achieve net-zero if mitigation measures are pursued that sequester as much carbon as is emitted.
He pointed out existing opportunities for economic growth and poverty reduction within a climate framework: “For instance, the solar-energy sector in Nigeria is vibrant. There is evidence that for many persons in the higher and middle-income classes, using generators powered by diesel or petrol is being substituted by solar. It would be reasonable for the Nigerian government to support citizens to go for off-grid solar energy for households and SMEs, while reducing the use of generators dependent on petrol and diesel.”
The Director-General of the Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF), Dr Joseph Onoja, stressed the need to channel climate financing directly to communities through trusted civil society organisations, local climate funds, and cooperatives with simple and transparent mechanisms.
“We must find ways to push funding directly to the local level through local climate funds, trusted civil society organisations, and community cooperatives with simple and transparent processes,” he said.
“Communities that restore mangroves, protect forests, or promote clean cooking should be paid for the results they deliver. If we get the governance right, climate finance won’t just be about numbers; it will be about justice, impact, and dignity for African people.”
Onoja noted that Nigeria’s pathway to achieving net-zero emissions by 2060 must be both realistic and fair.
“We can’t just switch off oil and gas overnight without creating alternatives for jobs, industries, and livelihoods,” he explained. “Gas can serve as a transition fuel, cleaner than diesel or firewood, while we invest heavily in solar, mini-grids, and other renewables that reach the last mile. At the same time, we must reform our grid, cut losses, and create green industrial zones that help businesses stay competitive.”
He further emphasised that a truly adaptation-focused COP30 should guarantee funding parity between adaptation and mitigation efforts, ensuring that at least half of all climate finance flows to locally led initiatives where people are already innovating to stay resilient.
Shaping Nigeria’s climate diplomacy
As COP30 begins, Nigeria’s climate diplomacy must navigate two parallel tracks. On one hand, it must continue to assert African priorities on the global stage, insisting on climate justice, fair financing, adaptation and local-led solutions.
On the other hand, it must strengthen domestic implementation: converting laws into action, aligning state and local government budgets with adaptation and mitigation plans, and mobilising domestic finance alongside international support.
The host country’s presidency in Belém underlines this dual challenge. Brazil has framed COP30 as the “COP of Implementation”, seeking to turn promise into practice. One of the key signals is the “Baku-to-Belém Roadmap”, which proposes scaling climate finance to at least $1.3 trillion per year by 2035.
For Nigeria and Africa more broadly, the message is clear: rhetorical commitments are no longer sufficient. What counts is genuine delivery of resources, institutional support and pathways to resilience.
Nigeria’s overseas diplomacy must lay claim to a seat not only among the beneficiaries of climate finance but among the drivers of solution-oriented change.
Credit: THE GUARDIAN
