Category: Climate Finance

As the IMF and World Bank convene for their 2024 meetings, calls for reforms and climate finance remain unmet, leaving vulnerable countries in the Global South burdened with debt surcharges and limited access to resources. The institutions' actions, though promising on paper, continue to fall short in supporting real climate action.

Living in one of the most climate vulnerable regions, African youth are pushing their governments to better prepare for climate impacts and leverage the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage. We reached out to the Loss and Damage Youth Coalition to learn more about their views on the Fund’s role, their expectations for loss and damage and how their countries are preparing for the effects of climate change.

A recent push by the African Union might see an African Credit Rating Agency established by early next year. Will this be enough to overcome the credit ratings challenges that have undermined the ability of African countries to access affordable climate finance?

At the 44th SADC Summit, the bloc grappled with how it would achieve its industrialisation goals whilst responding to climate change and related energy woes. Newly appointed SADC Chair, Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa, underscored the centrality of renewable energy in this process, as the region looks to unlock opportunities in agro-processing and minerals beneficiation.

Given the US$ 1.2 billion chasm between the expectations of advanced and developing countries, Africa must find innovative ways to secure the necessary finance for climate action and development. Green bonds offer one means to do so. Nigeria is on a path to expanding its use of green bonds; however, it needs to do a lot more to increase the scale and success of these instruments. 

At the most recent meeting on the new climate finance target in Cartagena, countries redrew the same battle lines as last year’s loss and damage fund deliberations around who will pay, when, how much and for what actions. While there was some consensus on the framework for the text of the new goal, we are still very far from consensus on its substance.

We spoke with Nomasango Masiye Moyo, an attorney at Natural Justice, about the pending request for an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on liability for climate change and the relatively muted response by African governments.