COP30: Africa must push for climate solutions, not lip service
Columnists
By
Lynet Otieno
| Nov 08, 2025
The annual global climate talks will be taking place in Belem, Brazil, for two weeks. Just in time, many a report have been launched, one being the “Banking on Climate Chaos (BOCC)”, a Fossil Fuel Financing report that has examined Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) and how they invest in the fossil fuel industry.
The report paints a picture of World Bank’s insatiable appetite for profits from the fossil fuel industry, some new and others expanding. And this is not good news.
According to this report, a whopping $7.9 trillion has been lent to fossil fuel industry players since 2016. In 2024 alone, the banks lent companies doing fossil fuel business some $869 billion.
Painfully, some of these funds end up in Africa, not to fund renewable energy or reduce the climate impacts in the continent, but to expand its involvement in the fossil fuel industry. You may call this development an increase in job opportunities for the locals who work in those projects, but then, at what cost?
Africa got some of these fossil fuel funds, at least $98 billion between 2019 and 2022, landing in the hands of fossil fuel-focused companies. Some of the biggest banks in the US have been called out for their involvement in such lending, as it encourages expansion of the fossil fuel industry, either through starting of new projects or expanding existing ones.
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When last month Kenya’s Environment and Lands Court upheld the National Environment Tribunal’s rejection and cancellation of the Amu Power Company Limited license for the construction of the Lamu Coal Power Plant, it was one big victor for the Lamu community.
The risks that this project posed included pollution of air through ash disposal, water, messing up the coastal ecosystem, and the soil could have caused health , economic and other problems. And how possible is it for a community to reuse land after that kind of extraction?
The project had been approved by NEMA. The courts declined the license on grounds of inadequate environmental and social impact assessment, but even if these were to be achieved, this is not the kind of project we want in Africa.
In the Lamu case, one of the initial prospective funders was the Africa Development Bank, which, thankfully, withdrew soon after the NET ruling in 2019.
The truth is, Africa deserves better funding than what it is getting. The continent needs more money for clean energy adaptation, not for more fossil fuel projects. According to the BOCC report, Africa is already underfinanced to focus on clean energy. According to a UN estimate, the continent has a shortfall of about $2.5 trillion, by 2030.
The main link here is the banks and the insurance companies. A lot of fossil fuel projects start, but not necessarily the full amount needed. For the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) project, for instance, the budget was $5 billion, but this could not have been raised by the stakeholders - TotalEnergies (62 per cent), Uganda’s and Tanzania’s national oil companies (30 per cent), and China National Offshore Oil Company (8 per cent). They have to borrow from banks, and the loans and other assets have to be insured.
This makes financial institutions a critical link because their participation determines which direction the fight against fossil fuels takes.
As Africa participates in the COP, it may feel a success to return to the continent with a bag of goodies, usually involving fossil fuel projects. Africa needs to develop to tackle climate change. While there, seek quality development, not fossil fuel deals.
- The writer is a contributing editor at Mongabay.