Africa’s climate transition under threat as CAPPA exposes fossil fuel expansion

By Destiny Obinna

Africa’s climate transition risks becoming a corporate profit-making venture rather than a pathway to environmental protection and economic justice, as governments continue expanding fossil fuel infrastructure despite commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a new report by Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA) and the Africa Make Big Polluters Pay Coalition has warned.

The report cautioned that African governments could undermine their climate ambitions through policies that promote oil and gas expansion, rely on uncertain foreign financing and give private corporations increasing influence over national climate priorities, while leaving vulnerable communities to bear the environmental and economic consequences.

The warning came yesterday as CAPPA and the Africa Make Big Polluters Pay Coalition (MBPP Africa) unveiled two reports examining Nigeria’s energy transition strategy and the climate commitments of five African countries.

The reports, Four Years On: Examining Nigeria’s Just Transition Plan and Nationally Determined Contributions in Africa: A Five-Country Policy Analysis, assessed Nigeria, Cameroon, South Africa, Togo and Uganda, exposing what the organisations described as troubling contradictions between climate promises and government policies.

The Executive Director of CAPPA, Akinbode Oluwafemi, said the findings raised fundamental questions about whether African climate policies were genuinely designed to protect people or were creating new opportunities for corporate interests.

He said: “These reports emerge from a fundamental concern: Are Africa’s climate policies genuinely transforming our economies and protecting our people, or are they creating new opportunities for corporate interests to profit while communities bear the consequences?”

Nigeria presents one of the clearest examples of the contradiction, according to the assessment.

Despite its ambition to achieve net-zero emissions by 2060, the country is pursuing an official oil production target of three million barrels per day by 2030, raising questions about the credibility and direction of its energy transition.

The report acknowledged progress in renewable energy deployment and policy development but argued that cleaner energy was being introduced into an economy whose institutions and revenue systems remained heavily dependent on oil and gas.

It also questioned the promotion of natural gas as a transition fuel, warning that methane, its principal component, is a powerful greenhouse gas.

The organisations argued that the country’s transition framework lacked sufficiently enforceable guarantees for workers and communities, particularly on income security, retraining, environmental restoration and alternative livelihoods.

The implications are particularly significant for the Niger Delta, where decades of oil extraction have left communities grappling with environmental degradation and economic dependence on petroleum activities.

With more than 80 million Nigerians lacking access to electricity, according to World Bank figures cited in the report, CAPPA maintained that the transition must deliver affordable and reliable power rather than focus exclusively on emissions targets.

The five-country analysis also questioned the growing influence of foreign companies in African climate policy development.

It cited Togo’s engagement of Cibola Partners, a Paris-based private carbon advisory firm, to prepare key technical deliverables for its climate mitigation, adaptation and investment planning.

The report argued that such arrangements required public scrutiny because the companies and institutions involved in shaping climate policies could influence whose interests those policies ultimately serve.

In Uganda, the organisations highlighted the contradiction between TotalEnergies’ renewable energy investments and its involvement in the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, which runs through Uganda and Tanzania, as well as the Tilenga oil project.

Cameroon also came under scrutiny following the award of five of nine oil blocks offered to fossil fuel operators, including Murphy Oil and Octavia Energy.

Another major concern was the growing reliance on carbon markets and offsetting schemes, which the organisations said could allow major polluters to continue emitting greenhouse gases while shifting the burden of climate action to forests, plantations and communities.

Uganda’s climate plan, for instance, assigns significantly greater projected emissions reductions to commercial plantations than to its two natural-forest restoration measures.

The report also cited documented forced evictions associated with a forestry and carbon-credit project in Kachung, Uganda, warning that climate interventions could become another avenue for land dispossession.

On financing, the organisations questioned the growing dependence of African countries on international loans to implement climate commitments.

Nigeria estimates that it requires $337 billion between 2026 and 2035 to meet its climate commitments, with 80 per cent expected from international funding.

Togo has made 69.9 per cent of its financing requirements conditional on international support, while approximately 80 per cent of the international financial support recorded by South Africa for 2021 and 2022 came as loans.

The organisations warned that such arrangements risk transferring the financial burden of historical pollution to countries that contributed relatively little to the climate crisis.

Oluwafemi, in his opening remarks at the launch, said: “Even worse, climate finance delivered as loans risks pushing African nations deeper into debt as they respond to a crisis they have contributed little to creating.”

He added that a just transition must go beyond changing energy sources or announcing ambitious targets.

“It must improve people’s lives, protect livelihoods, respect community land rights, and ensure that those responsible for the climate crisis meet their obligations,” he said.

Contributing partners from the five countries also demanded stronger accountability and community participation.

The Founder and Chief Executive of Yielding Intersectional Movements in South Africa, Ndivile Mokoena said: “The persistent gap between global climate commitments and local realities raises critical questions about political will and economic systems that continue to prioritise profit and growth over human well-being and ecological sustainability. This report underscores the urgent need to move beyond promises to tangible implementation, adequate climate financing, and meaningful support for developing countries.”

The Executive Director of Nia Environment & Zero Carbon Alliance in Uganda, Acola Amina said: “Achieving a rights-based, ecofeminist climate agenda that reflects Uganda’s realities and responds to the needs of affected communities requires inclusive participation and collective commitment.”

Similarly, the Executive Director of Centre pour la Justice Environnementale in Togo, Kwami Kpondzo said: “Carbon markets and geoengineering are not solutions to the climate crisis. Rather, they are dangerous distractions that risk worsening the plight of vulnerable communities, threatening livelihoods, and undermining genuine climate action. We must put people and the planet before profit. Nature is not a commodity for sale, and we remain steadfast in our commitment to defending it.”

Oluwafemi said: “The Nigeria Energy Transition Plan and the Five-Country NDCs Reports offer an opportunity to rethink how energy policies and climate commitments serve people and communities. These reports emphasise that equity, transparency and accountability must remain central in every plan, while ensuring that affected communities have a meaningful voice in decisions that shape their future.”

The organisations called on African delegates attending the 31st United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP31, in Antalya, Türkiye, to reject carbon offsetting as a substitute for actual emissions reductions and challenge climate accounting arrangements that allow continued fossil fuel pollution to be balanced against temporary or unreliable carbon storage.

They also demanded binding safeguards against corporate capture, including conflict-of-interest rules to prevent fossil fuel companies, major industrial polluters and conflicted private consultants from determining national climate priorities.

Other demands include legal protection for communal land, meaningful participation of workers and affected communities in climate decisions, transparent budgets and adequate, predictable, grant-based climate financing from historically high-emitting countries.

The coalition further called for a planned and funded phase-down of fossil fuel extraction, supported by substantial public investment in decentralised renewable energy, affordable electricity and legally binding protections for workers and communities.

It insisted that income security, retraining, secure employment, environmental remediation and livelihood restoration must become funded obligations of Africa’s energy transition.