Africa restated its ambition and potential to be a global climate leader, investment destination, and solutions provider, as African leaders and the global climate community gathered for the UNFCCC’s second 2025 regional Climate Week (CW2) and Africa Climate Summit 2 (ACS2) hosted by the Ethiopian government and the African Union.
Africa on the global stage
Two years after the inaugural Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi in 2023, the two high-level convenings elevated Africa’s climate leadership voice on the global stage, drawing participation from African Heads of State alongside global leaders, to place Africa’s climate needs and contributions at the forefront of the world’s minds as we head towards COP30. Despite tense negotiations on the Summit Declaration over issues such as the controversy over Ethiopia’s launch of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, and increased calls for adaptation finance, the Summit projected pan-African solidarity on climate.
Key outcomes include:
- Adoption of the Addis Ababa Declaration, demanding fair and predictable financing for Africa with a strong unified signal from the continent of adaptation as a priority, financing as key to unlocking implementation, and solutions and investment as the focus.
- Launch of the Africa Climate Innovation Compact and endorsement of the Flagship Report on African Climate Initiatives, positioning the continent as a solutions provider, and hub for renewable energy, green industrialisation, and intra-African trade.
- Ethiopia’s announcement of its bid to host COP 32 in 2027, alongside Nigeria’s existing bid, signaling Africa’s determination to continue to anchor global climate diplomacy.
- Publication of Ethiopia’s new Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC 3.0) at the opening ceremony of Climate Week 2, committing to a conditional 70.3% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2035 compared to business-as-usual (BAU), up from 68.8% in the previous update, alongside an unconditional 30.7% reduction.
- Leaders further called in the Addis Ababa Declaration for Africa’s share of global renewable energy investments to rise from a meagre 2% today to at least 20% by 2030, a shift that would finally reflect the continent’s potential as a renewable energy powerhouse.
Africa is a continent with diverse climate priorities yet the collective effort to showcase and strengthen African unity has placed the continent in a strong position to shape and influence global processes and priorities while supporting and amplifying the voices of the Global South and climate-vulnerable countries in the multilateral system. It challenges wealthier nations to respond to Africa’s calls – scaling up climate finance, reforming global systems, and building a credible pathway for the next generation of climate action while rebuilding trust in multilateral cooperation.
More detail on outcomes:
Unlocking scalable climate finance
Finance dominated discussions. Leaders stressed that both the scale and quality of public and private climate finance must improve, with urgent emphasis on the need to dramatically scale up of adaptation finance for the Continent, where donor commitments are falling short. The failure of the international financial architecture (IFA) to deliver international climate finance at scale to Africa, to support African transitions and enable African countries to be leaders rather than dependents was a recurring theme. However, in contrast to ACS1 at which the then-newly launched Bridgetown Initiative was a central rallying point, and despite some positive pledges from African Financiers, there were relatively few new proposals for how African leaders could leverage the multilateral system to achieve the necessary reforms.
Key areas of focus included:
- Strong emphasis on the need to scale up private finance, including for climate adaptation both by deepening domestic and regional capital markets and by deploying de-risking instruments to support international private finance. With highly constrained Official Development Assistance (ODA) in traditional donor countries, private finance is essential.
- Criticism of international credit ratings agencies for overestimating sovereign and sectoral risks in Africa, driving up the cost of capital. Proposals for an AU-led ‘African credit ratings agency’ to provide a more ‘realistic’ assessment of sovereign and sub-sovereign risk have yet to reach fruition.
- Recognition that Africa must shift the long-held global narrative from aid-dependence to being investor-ready showcasing the diverse range of bankable climate and development projects across the continent and its determination to move forward with financing and delivery.
Leaders emphasized that delivering a credible pipeline of opportunities – coupled with innovative derisking and guarantee mechanisms – will be central for attracting capital for Africa’s green transition including for climate adaptation and resilience.
Energy access, renewable energy and energy transition
Leaders further called in the Addis Ababa Declaration for Africa’s share of global renewable energy investments to rise from a meagre 2% today to at least 20% by 2030, a shift that would finally reflect the continent’s potential as a renewable energy powerhouse
Africa reaffirmed its ambition – first set out in the Nairobi Declaration of 2023 – to expand renewable energy capacity from 56 GW to 300 GW by 2030. Leaders, development banks, and civil society emphasised that this target is not just about climate ambition, but about delivering development gains: expanding energy access for the 600 million Africans still living in energy poverty, reducing emissions and advancing Africa’s green industrialisation. The benefits are transformative as a successful transition could generate 2.2 million jobs and deliver savings of USD 3-5 trillion by 2050. Mission 300 , a partnership backed by the World Bank, the African Development Bank (AfDB), and philanthropic actors aims to electrify 300 million Africans by 2030, with 12 million people already reached.
Investment remains limited. Africa added just 4 GW of renewables capacity in 2024 compared to 600 GW globally, underscoring the need to increase energy finance from 2% to 20% by 2030 as stated in the Addis Ababa Declaration. Only 18% of climate finance in Africa currently comes from the private sector, far short of the of the 50% target set for Mission 300. This underlines the need to reduce the cost of capital, expand de-risking tools and address the distortions created by international credit ratings.
Leaders also stressed the importance of regional power markets through stronger grid infrastructure, upgraded transmission networks and harmonised regulations, and expansion of the East African and Southern Africa Power Pools leveraging IRENA’s Africa Clean Energy Corridor initiative, already endorsed by government to accelerate cross-border power trade and renewable deployment.
Energy efficiency remains under-recognised and resourced, even though it offers some of the fastest and most affordable gains, while clean cooking continues to be a critical need across the continent. At the same time, financiers continue to claim they struggle with bankability, requiring sustained support from partners and technical assistance facilitate such as the African Development Bank’s Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (SEFA). But this should not slow down momentum and equity financing instruments along with other innovative financing tools will be critical to filling the gaps including for early opportunities. It’s clear that Africa’s energy transition is cross-sectoral and demands coordinated policies and resources.
Other growing initiatives and programmes highlighted during the two weeks, include the Continental Energy Programme in Africa (CEPA) under the European Union’s Global Gateway, which supports the African Single Electricity Market (AfSEM), the Continental Masterplan, and the African Energy Efficiency Strategy; Energy for a Green and Just Transition (ENGAGE), a €16.5 million Germany–African Union partnership to strengthen regulatory frameworks and capacity; and the Accelerated Partnership for Renewables in Africa (APRA), now two years old, which has been useful to countries who continue to request from speed and scale to funders. Also recognition of the Africa Clean Energy Corridor needing to become more effective.
Adaptation and resilience
Leaders agreed that adaptation must be fully integrated into national development strategies, driven by country priorities and people-centred. Alongside the strong focus on bold Africa-led strategies for resilience, there were repeated calls for international support to drive the formulation, implementation, and financing of National Adaptation Plans.
But the adaptation finance gap looms large: Africa needs USD 53 billion annually but received just USD 13 billion in 2021-2022. With the Glasgow goal to double adaptation finance from 2019 levels by 2035 due to expire this year, new sources of adaptation finance will be a major issue at COP30. Kenyan President William Ruto used the ACS2 platform to criticise donor countries for falling short on their pledges and the Addis Ababa Declaration emphasised that adaptation finance should be grant based or highly concessional not debt-creating and be anchored in the reform of the international financial architecture. Other divisions remain: the Africa Group of Negotiators (AGN) called for a properly costed Global Goal on Adaptation and Least Developed Country (LDC) negotiators called for a tripling of the existing doubling pledge earlier this year at Bonn. These tensions foreshadow critical debates at COP30, where donor countries must address Africa’s widening adaptation finance gap.
Just transition pathways
A major theme was the importance of defining a uniquely African Just Transition’, not one imposed externally. Leaders stressed that just transitions must extend beyond energy to emphasise adaptation, resilience and development priorities. The Addis Ababa Declaration welcomed the UAE Just Transition Work Programme but underscored that finance, technology development and transfer, capacity building and meaningful international cooperation remain a prerequisite for equitable transitions. Without these, just transition will remain aspirational rather than achievable.
Green minerals for green growth
Africa’s vast reserves of ‘critical minerals’ – essential for clean technologies – were recognised as the cornerstone of the continent’s green industrialisation. Leaders announced the formation of a coalition of African mineral-producing countries, intended to ensure that extractive leads to inclusive growth, local value addition, and a just energy transition supporting the efforts to position Africa as a climate solutions provider and a global hub for green manufacturing and industrial transformation. This follows and builds up on the launch of the Africa Green Minerals Strategy which supports an inclusive and non-exploitative green industrialization on the continent.
Governance reforms and Institutions, and tracking outcomes
Stronger, more transparent, and inclusive climate governance for Africa emerged as another key theme highlighting some relevant tools and mechanisms:
- A Model Climate Change Law, has been developed by the African Group of Negotiators Expert Support (AGNES) to help countries without climate change Acts strengthen their national governance frameworks, following lobbying by MPs across the continent.
- Climate councils (the advisory bodies to governments on climate change, often established in law) to be used as accountability mechanisms for evidence-based climate policy, progress towards targets and as vehicles to attract climate and development finance, drawing on the South African Presidential Climate Commission as a model including to drive Country Platforms (CPs).
- Climate Finance Units (CFUs) in countries such as Uganda and Rwanda functioning as government bodies that can retain flexibility and agility to mobilise and manage funds effectively.
These innovations highlight Africa’s leadership in building governance systems that link policy ambition with practical delivery.
Tracking outcomes – particularly finance flows after the Africa Climate Summits (ACS) – needs to be far more rigorous. Stocktakes show it has been difficult to follow the finance flow from ACS1, and without more intentional tracking, stronger accountability, commitments risk staying on paper rather than being translated into real progress
Conclusion and next steps
Together, the UNFCCC Climate Week 2 and the Africa Climate Summit 2 showcased Africa’s growing climate leadership, voice, solidarity, and solutions for global climate action. Some progress remains to be made. Disagreements remain for example on the climate, peace and security nexus, reflecting Africa’s diversity. However, these did not detract from or overshadow the continent’s unified and progressive stance on finance, adaptation and systemic reforms. The challenge now shifts to the international community. The Addis Declaration set a clear agenda:
- Reform the international financial architecture.
- Elevate adaptation and resilience, scaling up adaptation finance to close Africa’s widening adaptation gap and recognising Africa’s vulnerability to climate impacts.
- Increasing financing to meet Africa’s needs for green energy investments to unlock renewable energy investment and just transition pathways.
- Recognition of Africa as a partner and solutions provider.
With UNGA, Pre-COP, the Climate and Development Ministerial, the World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings, COP30 and the G20 Leaders’ Summit ahead, wealthier nations must respond to Africa’s call – delivering not just promises but real pathways to action. Trust in the multilateral climate system and cooperation depends on it.
