Living With a Crisis They Barely Caused: Africa's Climate Daily Reality

Droughts, floods and shifting rainfall are already part of daily life for millions of people across much of Africa. Agriculture is being unsettled, energy and industry strained, and livelihoods squeezed. It is a hard reality for a continent that has contributed relatively little to the greenhouse gas emissions driving the problem. Yet it is also the backdrop against which African governments, communities and investors are trying to build something practical: a working carbon market that can channel money to projects protecting ecosystems and supporting livelihoods.

That effort was on full display in Kigali this October. The Carbon Markets Africa Summit convened from 13th to 15th October under the auspices of Rwanda’s Ministry of Environment, with the United Nations Development Programme and the African Development Bank serving as host organisations. It was the summit’s second edition. The first was held in Johannesburg in 2025, created by the VUKA Group to bring governments, investors, project developers and other partners into conversation about Africa’s carbon market opportunities.

Speaking at the opening, Dr. Bernadette Arakwiye, Minister for Environment of the Republic of Rwanda, set out three priorities she said were needed for carbon markets to work for Africa: accessible methodologies, project preparation and readiness finance, and long term demand at fair value. Her framing captured a tension that ran through the three days of discussions. African countries have shown real commitment. But the money that would turn their climate plans into action remains scarce and hard to reach.

The scale of that scarcity is well documented. Drawing on the UNFCCC Standing Committee on Finance’s assessment, the COP29 finance decision in Baku, Azerbaijan, recognised that developing countries’ costed needs in their Nationally Determined Contributions amounted to between US$5.1 trillion and US$6.8 trillion through 2030. That figure describes needs rather than the financing gap itself, but it conveys the urgency of closing the distance between ambition and available finance. Countries have set out their climate goals in NDCs, with both conditional targets, which depend on external support, and unconditional ones, which they intend to deliver with their own resources, though these are not always budgeted. Turning either into full scale action requires investment that is available, accessible and suited to their needs.

Carbon markets are one of the instruments tipped to help. Alongside debt for nature swaps, sovereign green bonds and first loss capital that reduces risk for other investors, carbon markets operating through compliance mechanisms under the Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanisms and voluntary markets can bring private finance on board, including through blended financing arrangements, to support national commitments and give industry a path to net-zero.

Meanwhile, African countries are far from passive participants. Kenya has a long history of carbon market engagement and has strengthened its legal framework to support investment. Ghana’s Article 6 pathway includes cooperation with a number of countries and a project pipeline spanning clean cooking, sustainable rice cultivation, waste management and electric mobility. Senegal has authorised a programme supporting the transition to electric vehicles. These practical pathways are reinforced through Cooperative Approaches with Switzerland, Singapore, Sweden and others, allowing African countries to engage in the carbon market in pursuit of their climate goals.

The Kigali summit packed its three days with high level discussions, investor and buyer roundtables, project showcases, technical workshops and deal rooms, including a Nature Deal Room hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme. But the platform went beyond presenting projects. It gave participants a chance to examine how the infrastructure for Article 6 and voluntary carbon markets is actually being built, and to learn from practical experience: clear authorisation processes, reliable registries, and credible measurement and verification. Two first-of-a-kind initiatives were launched. The Africa Nature Impact Fund is set up to raise and deploy USD100 million for nature-based climate projects, while the Africa Carbon Investment and Finance Alliance, which counts the Environmental Defense Fund as a collaborating founding member, aims to mobilise capital into high integrity African carbon markets. Both are designed to turn promising initiatives into investments that buyers and financiers can trust and deploy at scale.

For the Environmental Defense Fund, the summit was also a chance to connect with partners through bilateral meetings, roundtable discussions and active panel sessions. Those conversations focused on strengthening partnerships around nature-based climate action, supporting transparent and bankable initiatives, and exploring meaningful support for Indigenous Peoples, local communities and forest jurisdictions. The underlying point is a simple one: as these markets develop, the participation, rights and benefits of the people who live with the forests and landscapes in question must remain central.

That human dimension is, in the end, what the financing debate is about. Investment that reaches well-designed projects can translate into emissions reductions, protected ecosystems and support for livelihoods, the very things that climate impacts in Africa are currently eroding. Africa, the summit made clear, is rising to the occasion by building a stronger space for carbon markets that deliver benefits within a transparent regulatory framework. The work taking place on African soil can feed into the broader global climate conversation, with lessons and partnerships extending well beyond the continent and into discussions at COP31 in Antalya and beyond. For the communities on the front line of droughts and floods, the open question is whether this growing architecture of finance arrives in time to make a difference where it matters most.