How Africa can Unlock World’s Most Promising Net-Zero Solution

Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), a leading development finance institution in Africa, launched the report titled 'How Africa Can Unlock World’s Most Promising Net Zero Solution', today at the Business & Philanthropy Climate Forum during COP28. 

At a critical moment in the fight against climate change, the world is squandering a significant opportunity by neglecting Earth’s most important natural carbon repositories – Africa’s forests, grasslands, peatlands and mangroves. The global carbon markets offer a pragmatic way to change this course for the better, with scope to attract meaningful and much-needed finance for conservation, energy transition and climate resilience. Yet, as things stand, carbon markets are failing to deliver. Worse, they risk enabling polluting countries and industries to ignore the burden of their ‘pollution per capita' responsibilities and justify backsliding on urgent emission reductions.

These are the findings of a positioning paper released at COP28 by the Africa Finance Corporation, which urges against complicit arrangements with external entities that undervalue Africa’s natural assets. Instead, Africa’s political and economic leadership should take a strategic approach to harness the full benefits of a viable future carbon market, which Africa must lead, according to AFC. Click below to read the full report.