From Addis to Belém: Delivering Justice and Powering Africa's Transition Ambition 

The Declaration by African heads of state and governments at the second Climate Summit (ACS2) in Addis Ababa last week was both a strong demonstration of leadership and a striking omission just two months before COP30 in Belém, Brazil. By prioritizing access to energy, green industrialization, and mineral governance, they have redrawn the map of Africa's climate ambition around a vision of economic prosperity and equity.  

However, while the Declaration emphasized "phasing in" jobs, access to energy, and development, it stopped short of referencing "phasing out" fossil fuels, a call at the center of global climate action since COP28 in Dubai.

What Addis got right

The Addis Declaration reflects three big shifts that deserve attention:

• Justice first: Leaders sent a loud and clear signal that Africa's transition must be fair and just. The Declaration referenced justice and equity 61 times, ten times more than the Nairobi Declaration, making equity the defining frame of Africa's climate ambition.
• Finance front and center: African governments placed finance at the heart of their climate agenda. They welcomed the Baku-Belem roadmap to $1.3 trillion, but flagged the continent's financing gap, with a staggering $3 trillion requirement by 2030, compared with just $30 billion mobilized between 2021 and 2022. They called for more grants, less debt, faster disbursements, reform of the international financial system to reduce the cost of capital, improved access to finance, and prioritization of adaptation and loss and damage.  
• Minerals elevated: For the first time, African leaders carved out a dedicated section on transition minerals, absent entirely from the Nairobi Declaration. They tasked the African Union Commission to explore the creation of a coalition of African critical mineral-producing countries to cooperate strategically on local processing, aligning with the Africa Green Minerals Strategy.  Outside of the European Union, no other region has given so much high-level attention and consideration to global and regional climate action priorities.

Three priorities on the road to Belem 

Between now and COP30, several boxes remain for African leaders and international partners to tick to ensure that Belém can deliver the results on the ambitious vision from Addis. Key priorities include:

1. Break COP's silence on transition minerals

Demand for transition minerals is surging, with risks of deepening social, environmental, health and human rights harms. However, with strong governance, minerals can drive value addition and diversification for developing countries. The African Group of Negotiators (AGN), Africa's voice in the international climate negotiations, will be key to this effort. They must ensure that COP30 breaks its mineral silence by:

• Acknowledging the role and relevance of transition minerals in implementing the Paris Agreement's Global Stocktake, the review of collective progress and gaps in meeting global climate goals.
• Endorsing the principles and recommendations of the UN Secretary-General's Panel on Transition Minerals, calling for inclusive multilateral action that centers the voice of low- and middle-income producing countries
• Supporting the creation of a Global Just Transition Mechanism to help drive implementation and focus funding on just transition priorities, including integrating fair trade in minerals into planning and implementation
• Ensuring overall coherence between the UN climate process and other UN forums on global minerals governance.  

Beyond these, the AGN should also bring forward proposals at the Response Measures Forum, so that COP30 outcomes recognize mineral governance as a key component of response measures that deliver tangible benefits to resource-rich countries. They should further develop operational proposals, including clear roadmaps, milestones, and monitoring plans, to support the Declaration's call for a coalition of African transition mineral-producing countries. This will help harmonize rules, accelerate local value addition and ensure social and environmental safeguards.

2. Champion innovative transition finance 

The Declaration rightly highlights the urgent need for "innovative climate finance mechanisms" but avoids endorsing any specific solutions. For a decade, Africa has leaned on the "billions to trillions" narratives, the idea that small amounts of public and concessional finance could derisk markets and unlock massive flows of private capital. In practice, every dollar of public money has mobilized just 30 cents of private capital, often at high interest rates and under strict conditionalities. This ineffective experiment demands a pivot toward predictable public finance and large-scale grant instruments, not illusory multipliers.

An alternative is already emerging. At the recent 4th UN Conference on Financing for Development in Seville in July 2025, Benin, Kenya, Sierra Leone and Somalia formed part of a coalition of countries backing a levy on premium air travel to generate new, additional, and predictable flows of public finance that they could channel to Africa's just energy transition priorities. If implemented globally, this measure could raise over $80 billion per year in grant-based finance – more than three times the $25 billion per year that the IEA considers necessary for universal access to energy in Africa.

African leaders have also called on developed countries to honor their financial commitments under the Paris Agreement and reform the international financial architecture. Complementary tools such as debt-for-climate swaps, regional carbon price floors, and concessional lending at fair rates should be part of the mix. The principle is clear that Africa cannot finance its just transition by sinking deeper into debt.

The Global Solidarity Levies Task Force has developed the premium air travel level alongside other innovative financing sources in recent years.  African leaders should use COP30 as the launchpad to secure multilateral endorsement of these measures and link them to the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG).

3. Develop a clear position on fossil fuels before COP30

By avoiding any reference to the fossil fuel phase-out, the Addis declaration sought to protect Africa's energy sovereignty, unify its internal positions and strengthen the continent's negotiating posture, given that several countries are still betting heavily on oil and gas resources.   

However, silence on fossil fuels will not shield Africa from the reality that the global train has already left the station as the energy transition is well underway. African oil producers face a growing set of transition risks that they must acknowledge, assess, and act on to avoid significant losses of revenues, jobs, and energy security. 

African leaders can best protect their citizens by seizing the initiative and shaping the global framework for a just, orderly, and equitable transition away from fossil fuels, ensuring that it supercharges rather than undermines their economic and human development trajectories.

Between now and Belém, African leaders must build on the spirit of the Addis Declaration and craft their fossil fuel transition frameworks that integrate existing strategies for inclusive, green industrialization, economic diversification, social protection, and vocational training and re-skilling into a finance package for COP30. Such a position should build on the Declaration's emphasis on equity and justice by reconciling the "phase in" of development with the "phase out" of fossil fuels and making relevant, nationally-determined contributions conditional on international support. 

Unity is Africa's power

The second Africa Climate Summit set out an ambitious vision that asserts African leadership. In Belém, that vision must move from words to action. For Africa's agenda to shape COP30 outcomes, African leaders must speak with one voice and act on the three priorities that Addis placed on the table. 

Unity across Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone Africa will give the continent the leverage it needs to turn its ambitions into global impact. Addis laid a strong foundation. The victory will come when Africa carries this vision to the global stage and secures concrete action.